Monday, March 30, 2009

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?"

Saturday, March 28, 2009

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.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Reporters ask good questions, sometimes


Must be a new breed of MSM

Last night one or two of them asked Obama how come he and Geithner knew about those AIG bonuses like ten days before he blew his stack. Well seems he had to get his thoughts in order for a couple of days and when the question was posed again he tackled health care instead. Another guy said Obama is leaving a massive debt to our young people down the road and his response was "we are cutting the deficit in half in the next four years, nobody disputes that" (file this under HUH?). There was a question about stem cells, have you wrestled with this issue Mr. Bam? He said of course he did but I dunno and the reporter stressed but adult stems have held more promise and seem more successful and Obama goes but on balance he thinks he made the right decision. A woman even posed a question about race and began it with "yours is a somewhat historic presidency."

I'm lovin' it!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Shock 'em back into Reality


Went to church last night and sitting before Mass perusing the bulletin and saw something weird. There were inserts in each bulletin announcing a special meeting to discuss advance directives and health-care proxies so that the tragic case of Terri Schiavo doesn't happen to you. On the side of the flyer was a rather graphic autopsy photo of Terri, kids sitting in the pews with their Moms and Dads could easily see it and I was never a fan of a little Faces of Death action in order to make your point, you won't find pics of aborted babies here for instance. OK but I was real surprised pro-lifers are still going with this photo as it's not TS after all and was debunked some time ago on the Internet. In reality the face with the number below it is of Lisa McPherson, a young woman who was slowly and cruelly starved and dehydrated to death over the span of about two and a half weeks in a Clearwater, Florida hotel room allegedly at the hands of Scientologists. It just so happens that Lisa McPherson bore a strong, even uncanny resemblance to Terri Schiavo. Yes it kind of calls into question the integrity of the pro-life movement if that's your angle but gee whiz man, if anything this stuff should be on cable, not in the back of your church!

side notes:

http://www.libertytothecaptives.net/ go to the upper right-hand corner for the Terri Schiavo/Scientology connection

If you do a google image search and type in simply "Terri Schiavo" on the very first page you'll see the McPherson photo, this was the image in my church bulletin.

Friday, March 20, 2009

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.

Just a regular liberal guy


Conservatives criticizing Obama, in other words not agreeing with the historic president, now that's color-blind and isn't that what it's all about? Say we had the first African-American lesbian tranny president, same deal. The Dream fulfilled!

Are those Starbursts? brings to mind the time I had a nice 21' Wellcraft motorboat and took my Dad out on Long Island Sound. We went down to Manhattan, through the Harlem River and up the Hudson past the Tappan Zee to around Sing Sing in Ossining and then back again to Port Chester. Dad enjoyed the trip, it was really nice and all but I got the sense being from the practical generation he was less than impressed. He made the comment you can see the same things from land. I'm sorry I couldn't take him to see the Emperor Hirohito.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

A Z Principle Revisited

I first thought of posting this as a comment at Danny's most recent blog on St. Patrick's Day called Changing but felt another blog coming on as a result. His main point, Obama's first two months have not been exactly rosy, the Dems could f**k it up real bad and I'm paraphrasing here and so Repubs can pick up a few seats in 010. Can't argue with that, the honeymoon lust of the historic presidency might wear off by then but there's really an overarching principle at work that I enunciated way back a bit and that is no political party has permanent power although when our party wins we act like it does, that's it for the other side, they're finished, eat our dust. Probably has to do with our society being so polarized right now, we can't seem to come up with a moral or political consensus on a great many issues, it's just simple physics. It'll be what it's gonna be, Obama wants to print up so much new Monopoly money right now to make those bailouts possible that inflation will kick in sooner or later, probably in a couple years. And then it'll be their turn again after our side f**ks it up again and it's probably why I blog about other things from time to time.

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?

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

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.

Patriotism


Not that long ago I posed the question if you take the social issues off the table what binds us SC's and FC's together? It wasn't that much that I could come up with anyway but I think besides economic issues we can go with patriotism which is kind of paradoxical as I'll explain. I would say for the vast majority of conservatives of both stripes love of America is either #1 or #2 on their list of values, sometimes I think it's #1 but either way everything they say seems to go through this prism. For me love of God comes first, then love of family and friends, love of doing the right thing or moral values and then love of country and there's a reason for my prioritizing this way. For me if love of God and moral values come first you are less likely to fall into blind patriotism, it'll still be patriotism but you will not be afraid to take to task your own country if warranted. Now here's where it gets paradoxical, if anything I would think it would be hard for social conservatives to be overly patriotic as the culture so often goes against the way they think. There are still at least a million abortions every year, hardcore rakes in more than football, basketball and baseball combined and when it was an arrestable offense for Terri Schiavo's own mother to put an ice cube on her tongue the SC's were saying things like "how can this happen in this country? how can we allow the starvation of a human being when you can't even do that to an animal?" and yet the SC's are the first to wear a flag pin and call into question others who don't, they'll say there's no respect for human life in this country one day and the next bash some liberal college professor for being anti-American. Now I first made this point at Hannity that the Right can criticize aspects of American life and nobody calls into question their love of country but when the Left airs their pet grievances usually along racial injustice and economic disparity lines the fit hits the shan. The Right takes issue with the culture, the Left with injustice but one side is more perceived as being anti-American and it ain't the Hannity wing. It's a hash on my plate and I can't make sense out of it, 'twould seem the FC's have the least problems with society in general and have no use for Al Sharpton so they'd be the most patriotic in an objective sense or am I just being provocative?

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Basic shoemaking 101


(with apologies to all cobblers)

My chef friend learned the fine art of cooking at one of the world's premier culinary schools, the Culinary Institute of America or CIA for short. Just up the line on Rte. 9, Hyde Park in Dutchess County New York, next town after Po'town. He says there's a derogatory term they use there and not a day goes by when you don't hear it, "he's a real shoemaker" and it's not meant as a compliment. Shoemaking is not just frowned upon at the CIA but hated with a passion. Your basic definition as applied to cooking: to slap something together, to do a recipe in the most basic, most minimalist way just to get it out of the way. Now when I worked with this cool guy he'd do things the right way, the CIA way. Say you just made broccoli rabe and you need some roasted garlic on top as a garnish. People like garlic and it looks good too so the way he did it was to get his little saucepan going filled with some fresh and clean cooking oil and let those peeled garlic cloves simmer away for a while as he went and did something else. Now if there's one thing basic to a shoemaker's life it's the deep fryer and unless you work in a Mickie D's where the oil is always clean chances are it's a little dirty or more than a little dirty or iffy or yeah use it today but we'll clean it tomorrow. Anyway your basic shoemaker has no shame and considers himself some sort of guide to follow and so one day a lady cook (note I said cook and not chef) came to my place to get something and saw me getting ready to roast some garlic the right way and advised me to just fry it real quick in the you know where, that's the way she does it and everyone considers her the standard, some sort of Lidia Bastianich figure for the rest of us. Now I know this for a fact, in many restaurants when people order sausage and peppers after cutting up the peppers and onions they simply drop them in the fryer for several seconds and wham bam there's your order. Now BB Idaho recently mentioned the few chefs he knows who used to do something else, they picked up cooking as a kind of side job later in life and say chefing is easy, you simply follow formulas but that's basic shoemaking, it won't get you in trouble and chances are the boss'll like you 'cause you get it done quick and move on to the next thing and you pretty much do the same thing day in and day out, no variation and to him you're good, ole dependable. Take tuna, the shoemaker can make it a hundred times but he'll simply add celery and mayo and be done with it, it's annoying and let's move on to other things. Now tuna with celery and mayo ain't horrible, in fact it tastes ok but it's shoemaking and you've been corrupted without even knowing it. So because the shoemaker has been doing it for so long, in many cases years and years he considers himself some sort of culinary veteran and a few of them may even wind up on one of Gordon Ramsay's shows where they're likely to get reamed 'n' cleaned without the Vaseline. Many people shoemake sex, that's your basic porno, the same formula applied with very minor variations, ya got your closeup of a few pistons hitting some cylinders and it's a flick. Shoemaker columnists like they write down their deep thoughts on some napkin in a pub and send it in before deadline. Did I mention how they shoemake beef stew? It's an abomination, instead of simply doing things in their proper stages they drop everything into some big old stockpot at the same time and simmer away while they go take their PLD or Post Lunch Dump. I F****G hate shoemakers!!!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

In the realm of things better left unsaid


So my boss today, a woman says to me "you've been doing a great job lately" and I said back to her "lately?" Some compliments I can do without as in "you lost a lot of weight", not that you weren't aware of it but you're thinking like what did I look like before? I might have missed those walrus comments. Then there are people who mumble and sarcastically jibe they'll get you a hearing aid for Christmas. This is going way back but one time a woman said to me not only no when I expressed an interest in her but felt that further explanation was needed as in "I never desired to go out with you" which to my surprise when discussing the matter not everyone agreed with my view that it was insulting, kind of stating an objective fact I guess like telling everyone what you think of your birthday gifts which I would also find tacky but I ain't them. I know an older woman who had an abscessed tooth once and her son bluntly told her "Mom, did you try that breath mint I gave you?" not that it wasn't a problem but how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child comes to mind. We talk too much, there's a reason why they say silence is golden and the more you talk and let words flow the more likely you are to offend. I have only one thing to say,

STFU already!!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

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.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

& 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.....

Sunday, March 08, 2009

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.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

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.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

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.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

I want to break off a relationship

It all began with a kind of growth on my neck, then there was the issue of the funky water at work. I explained to him my concerns and it took a few visits before we became intimate (a little finger action). The thing was removed, turned out to be minor and we got on the subject of tinnitus or a varied humming in the ears. He's good, after the finger deal you kind of feel you can discuss anything with him. Did some bloodwork a couple of times, told me I had some crystals in my urine. I never understood this medspeak, sounds to me like I can open up my own jewelry store down Manhattan. Now we've kind of cooled things down a bit where I only see him every three months or so, little chitchat here and there, fairly routine, you're in you're out. So what I want to know is how do I break off my relationship with my

doctor?

Let no success story go unpunished




Even as a kid growing up before my whole political philosophy was formed it went against my grain every time I heard of some Democratic proposal to soak the rich and it has nothing to do with I'm one of them myself. I never really cared for the wealthy, for starters I can't relate to them. Rush is always railing against class warfare because he's rich himself but by the same token I'm not against the successful. My Dad thinks many of them don't come by their money honestly, this may be but if you've done things the right way and treat your employees fair and square why should you get punished in the form of excessive and onerous tax burdens? Danny has gone to great lengths to explain how Obama is not technically a socialist but his anti-wealth passion if you will, can't put my finger on it but it has some kind of pseudo Marxist/socialist flavor to it. Jim Cramer on the Today show this morning talked about Obama's radical agenda destroying wealth. I love this bug-eyed bastard, he tells it like it is.

This new guy, Michael Steele heading up the RNC, he was on CNN the other day calling Rush Limbaugh ugly and incendiary. It's fashionable to say but I'm not sure what it means. Conservative blacks in positions of power are often referred to as house niggers, I'm sure he wouldn't like THAT but if you gave me one of those shrink tests what comes to mind when you see this picture? kind of deal and the picture was of Rush sitting back in his golf shirt puffing on his Cohiba my first impression would be "don't listen to him much anymore." Steele's description doesn't even remotely come to mind, that'd mean 20 million of his listeners are incendiary and ugly too but hey maybe we live in an incendiary ugly country. Steele is just being a politically correct faggot, takes no cojones to say what he said.

(another massive cyberalert being issued from the Hannityland substation)