Thursday, December 29, 2011

Why we're not an intelligent country

Trending right now at least when I first signed in around 10:30 this morning are:

(1) Gaga boyfriend
(2) Kim Kardashian
(3) Katy Perry and Rus......
---
(5) Rachel Uchitel

I never got this, you go to the library let's say or are at home and have a very valuable chunk of Time and you're looking this stuff up? So what was I trending just now? Old black news anchor Bill McCreary who once hosted a show in NYC called Black News in the '70s on Channel 5 and oh yes I found for Saty a fully employee-owned company at http://www.scottscornermarket.com/ and just the other day I was googling different detox teas and that whole subject and well I'm eclectic but not stupid. Did you know there's such a thing as Radio Frequency Hearing which often gets misdiagnosed as tinnitus? I mean I follow the Gaga stuff just a touch, tangentially like I know she's 25 and doesn't have a boyfriend (Patrick get in there!) but millions of Americans googling these same stupid subjects day in and day out across the fruited plain? amateur experts on pop ephemera and we VOTE!!! Kelly Clarkson just endorsed Ron Paul btw (http://www.gossipcop.com/kelly-clarkson-ron-paul-endorsement-support-president-2012-republican-twitter/). So I'm gonna be gone a little bit and go check out that food market again:)

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

New Year's Resolutions

I've none, I already lost the weight. They say most folks gain a few pounds over the holidays. Well for me the way I combat this is I took a long walk the day before and on Christmas Day itself I ate very well of the main course offered and then some traditional desserts and no I didn't hold anything back but I didn't eat anything before this or after this for the rest of the day but it lasted me the whole day and into the night. Scotch, now there's a tricky potion. Got some Dalmore as a gift and later on that night with nothing on the TV I got bored, depressed and a tad irritable all at the same time thinking about work the next day. So I was all set on my day off this fine Tuesday to go to Balducci's the Food Lover's Market in the lovely and very Bronxville-esque town of Ridgefield CT and was doing some online research just now about getting there from the scenic Merritt Parkway when lo and behold they closed down! another victim of the bad economy and most of the stores and places I've become accustomed to shop over the years have likewise closed down. Rewatched Easy Rider few days back and the classic scene where the two bikers go to New Orleans and hitch up with two gals one played by Toni Basil and later drop acid and are wandering through some cemetery on some pretty bad trips. There's something weirdly hilarious about the scene and just heard on the news that moviegoing this year is down about $500 million from last year and all sorts of reasons were given but how 'bout most movies suck these days, they don't make 'em like they used to. I don't know what to do with myself today but might hit some Asian store later, the Ridgefield arc of my day is lost. Back to the regular sucky non-holiday music on the radio, don't remember a time in my life when music sucked so much and this is bad for long trips which I am wont to do. Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas, I've no problem just don't make me feel guilty if I go with Merry Christmas. So where are Jay-Z and Fitty's special holiday albums? (suggested song titles: Silent Night Deadly Night, Frosty the Blowman). This is what happens when you pigeonhole yourself in the bad, folks will laugh if you do something nice for a change and I read somewhere Fitty dropped a whole boatload of pounds going on some liquid diet so he could play some cancer survivor in a movie, might be interesting. Happy Whatever:)

Saturday, December 17, 2011

WORK

Most people seem to accept IT and it's the reason why I've not been online that much of late. WORK - it's not that I'm for it or against it but as Beth once said a long time ago she doubts if when we're on our deathbeds and we look back we'll be happy with all those hours we put in. This social commentator handyman who used to come in, one day he says to me "ever wish you were fired?" and I go "yeah, maybe then you can finish that book you always wanted to read." Unless you're in business for yourself or doing your own entrepreneurial thing you're really not in control of your own life, the master of your own ship like today I have to go in late and some days you can't go for that long walk you planned or go up the line to Walmart. I'd like to hear libertarians who are all for Maximum Freedom explain this. Libertarianism is a pipe dream in so many ways and the fact that most folks have to get up at some ungodly hour and go in with their lunchpails means others are in control of us, we're working on their terms and again it's not a good or a bad thing, it is what it is but Maximum Freedom it ain't. WHO invented Work and why can't we change or shift the paradigm a little so as to have more leisure time to cultivate, oh I don't know Family Values which conservatives are so big on? My brother doesn't complain that much about work, his philosophy is work is supposed to suck that's why they call it work and if you want to get all theological about it you can blame Adam and Eve our first parents. I'm in a work frame of mind today, it's an old old topic around here so why not let it riff?

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Cap'n Obama will get us through this

The economic weather of which he has no control over, at least that's my gist of what he told Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes. It's a kind of interesting analysis this fatalistic version, wonder if the public will buy it. It'd be like if Jimmy Carter had said the same thing that despite long gas lines and inflation I'ma gonna be the guy to steer us into better waters and nicer climes. All Obama has to do is push the right policies that will make a difference in people's lives like make them buy health insurance, can't help it if Fate's a racist. Obama the Orator vs. Newt the Debater, should be a good one:)

Friday, December 09, 2011

The evolving thread

Since my threads have a way of evolving, meandering, diverting in different and often interesting directions we'll take this pebble and throw it in the Pond. For me Alec Baldwin is an asshole not because of his politics, not because he's a liberal, he's just an asshole although I still say he was great in Glengarry Glen Ross so I'm able to put personalities aside for the sake of Art. So he got thrown off a plane for refusing to turn off his cell, 80-year old grandmas are being told to drop their pants so as TSA agents can check out their colostomy bags. Weight Loss Phase 2 - Maintenance. Now the societal reaction is are you still losing weight? Well no not according to my Homedics bathroom scale I bought at Bed Bath & Beyond so it's like why ain't he gaining some of that weight back? which so many are wont to do, must still be starving himself. There's something about shopping at BB&B that's soothing to the mind and I just love their new Gourmet Food Market, great for gift shopping. I can't wrap if my life depended on it, are women better at this than men? Unemployment rate now at 8.6% I think it is, I ain't gonna micropick the figure like some conservatives but it's still too high a number to win reelection on. So why hasn't the incandescent light bulb ban been rescinded yet? Guy told me if you wake up in the morning and it makes a clean break you're gonna have a good day, ain't had too many of those days lately. Job Stress, there should be something in the contract where you can send your laundry bill to the Company for skid marks in your drawers, gliding and sliding all day and that'll be on a rare blue moon day when you meet a hot chick. Evolve baby evolve:)

Saturday, December 03, 2011

The Thomas Sowell Experiment



Clarence Thomas/Herman Cain, clearly there's Something at work here -- Now black conservatives are either hopeless horndogs, right-wing Afro-American sex addicts, hypocrites of the first magnitude or pose a threat to the Established Order. As I concoct this thread Herman Cain is discussing this right now with the Missus. There have been at least five females to date who have accused Mr. Cain of sexual harassment in one form or another when he was the head of the National Restaurant Association (please stop using the acronym NRA as it confuses me) but now a Woman has come forward to accuse the very married Cain of having a 13-year Affair with her although no intercourse apparently was involved. Back in the day that used to known as a friendship but if it serves the Larger Goals......Now I do believe in the VLWC or Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy but regarding the treatment of black conservatives how do you prove it exactly? It's tantalizing, it's elusive and is part of a kind of larger Super-String Theory of Politics. Whose house do they meet at? who is the leader? how do they network, do they send out coded tweets? etc. etc. Well as in any scientific theory you have to conduct experiments so what I propose is

The Thomas Sowell Experiment

the noted black conservative economist who's against things like Black Victimology and the Welfare State, you know those things that make for a good butt massage for the Left. So have Mr. Sowell run for some high political office and see if the Pattern continues. Oh and lo and behold what do we have here, some secret porno stash of Mr. Sowell's? maybe he exposed himself in an elevator once to some young and startled female staffer just starting out or maybe more mild stuff will do and build from there and so somewhere along the line like, oh I don't know maybe Mr. Sowell deftly made use of some double entendre involving the word lollipop or simply him eating a roasted baby portobella mushroom in her presence bothered her. I'm tired of the small stuff of Politics, I want to see the Big Picture, some unified field theory at work here. I think the power of the Newt Gingrich Surge is that most of his stuff is behind him now, old skeletons from an old horror movie and so it's like Okay but he has some good ideas let's hear them. The Gingrich Surge frustrates the conservative punditocracy who has declared unanimously that he should be a second or a lower-tier candidate by now and just to throw this in but if Saty ever had an erotic dream about Newt I think she'd have to kill herself......so after the Thomas Sowell Experiment we can have the Shelby Steele Experiment just to nail it down and present the paper to some prestigious political journal:)

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Disorganized Religion

If you're Catholic you've probably heard, starting tomorrow there'll be some changes in the service. I don't know about you but when I go to church I want to rest my weary head, I don't want to work, have to figure things out. Going to Mass should not be like going to school. I got a flavoring of some of the new church songs or singing parts I guess you could call them and I like the old music better. I don't really know what gave impetus to all this but my guess is that after all the clergy sex-abuse scandals they want to rejazz the Church and get folks interested again. Again for me it's an effort and I go by the old adage if it ain't broke don't fix it. For the past few weeks now our pastor who has a passing resemblance to Newt Gingrich btw has been explaining the new translation as they call it and I just tune out. The Church is more like a corporation than a religious institution these days and every so often they feel they have to rejigger it or reset it or something. Some of the ushers look like game show hosts in their suits, all that's missing is the big Gene Rayburn mike. When I went to grade school they made us go to Mass some mornings and before the service there was a rosary group and the woman leading the group did it so fast it sounded more like an auction or a horse race. 'Member they made us go to Confession too and once word got out the strict priest was in the right booth and the good one was in the left all of a sudden the line switched all the way over, I mean you could have killed someone and he'd just go say Three Hail Mary's, maybe an Our Father too. Oh God I got alot more of this stuff like abusive nuns straight out of some Gothic novel but I'll just save it for the Comments Section:)

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Happy Black Friday!

Let's face it, it's not so much Happy Thanksgiving as you can't wait to go out to Kohl's or Walmart. It's no longer even 4AM on Friday morning but in many cases 10PM after you've just made your turkey sandwich from the day's leftovers. Oh God I am so not a herd mentaliter, did the bulk of my Xmas shopping at a more leisurely and enjoyable pace starting in early November, just a couple more people on the list. Never got the atheists this time of year, even porn shops celebrate Christmas. Ah the joyless crowd. Never forgot the story my mother told and this was many a moon ago when she didn't even know what Black Friday was. My Dad and Mom decided to go to the Danbury Mall, a quite nice ride from the big YO and she figured it's the day after Thanksgiving, folks will be relaxing the day ater recovering from their meals and maybe even a hangover or two so her first reaction was who the hell are these people and the rest is history. SUCKERS!!! all I gotta do is my wrapping and it's done. I hope nobody gets stampeded to death this year but even then it'll probably wind up on some sick website like that poor guy who got pummeled by some teen thugs on the subway with nobody coming to help. Sat seems to feel I'm devoting too much time to Natalie Wood, it's distracting fluff from all the Real Problems and Issues our country and society faces but I say this. Even if we got rid of all the distractions, forgot about the Bieber and K-Dash, say suspended X Factor for a time so we could as a nation give these critical issues our undivided attention wanna know something? They ain't getting solved, there's too much corruption in high places. Just look at the Super Committee and speaking of X Factor Astro somehow feels he's obliged to win otherwise it's just some cosmic conspiracy against young black rappers from Brooklyn. Lakoda Rayne looked cute last night, oh I forgot that's a Distraction. Sorry, gotta go home now and do my recycling:)

Monday, November 21, 2011

Blog Rage





I'm gonna have to start pulling some people over. Don't hate, participate:)

Saturday, November 19, 2011

The worm of conscience




So why is this Natalie Wood/Robert Wagner yacht captain guy speaking out after lo these 30 years? Dennis Davern, kind of a grubby-looking fellow from what I saw on the Today show now says something if I got it straight that Wagner was aware Natalie was missing but didn't take the necessary steps to locate her or something like that. Mr. Davern also says he basically lied to the police and others have said why would Natalie go out on a dinghy after fighting with Robert when she hated the water? Yes every book has to have a hook but there's also been a void for a good celebrity crime trial since the OJ heyday (Robert Blake and Phil Spector didn't get the water coolers buzzin' the next morning), get those tv's in TGIF rockin', get the talking bobbleheads on, get E.T. and Access Hollywood all revved up but from my own vantage point it doesn't look good when everyone on a yacht is heavily drinking and the spouses have a horrible argument and she goes missing only to wash up on the Coast a day later. When you're a celebrity you have power and well I just wanted to open it up for discussion and give the old blog that nostalgic swirl from time to time. I think Christopher Walken eventually went in his cabin to sleep the whole time (he could play himself in any upcoming movie imo) but you know something's definitely percolating here, they wouldn't open it up again for nuthin':)

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Just leave the Gander Mountain stuff home ok?

A judge has ruled that the OWS protesters in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan can stay but they can't bring sleeping gear and tents into the park anymore, does this include Johnny Jugs? I think the topless gal did it, imagine if she were a Tea Partier oh the fun Shaw could have!! That 60's/70's Show shows no signs of abating but the core message of anti-corporate greed is a good one and I can't really quibble with it. Right-wingers are reflexively against OWS just as most left-wingers are against the Tea Party despite some overlapping goals and themes here. TP+OWS, why not? the perving of spacetime, that's gonna happen. The goal of all protest movements is to make people confront something they don't wanna confront, early on it was the lack of civil rights for blacks then a dead fetus, today it's corporate greed. Re my own blogging I've often said it's not so much my goal to win the debate but to have a discussion (S-Block might disagree). To take abortion as just one example, it's not so much my aim to bring you kicking and screaming 100% into my pro-life corner but a far more modest goal of mine is to make you less pro-abortion (and I can't even seem to do this) and so another problem with OWS is they have this All-or-Nothing principle. Obviously if OWS spent only one week in Lower Manhattan they'd barely be remembered and become merely a trivia question in the neverending and relentless 24/7 news cycle (Penn State today, tomorrow more of the Conga line of Herman Cain sexual accusers) so this explains their longevity and so their collective decision to brave the winter elements. Ah yes a chapped ass from all that fine OWS cuisine, snot icicles and freezing your little cherry balls off, frostbitten nipple tips and cold java and a heavily biased NY Post against you, now that's a Protest Movement!:)

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Can you be a conservative and still believe in climate change?

I say Yes, it's not agreement or disagreement with the Theory that determines whether or not you're a true conservative but what do you do about it? In a word Nothing:)

Monday, November 14, 2011

The Rise of Newt

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had a very respectable showing at the last debate moderated by CBS News Scott Pelley and really shone on foreign policy and is even getting traction in the polls. By now it is conventional wisdom however that Newt is unelectable so why is that? It is because the Powers that be say so and this is reinforced by the echo chamber of the conservative punditocracy (e.g. the New York Post's John Podhoretz) and trickles down into the psyche of the voting public. I know soapie will disagree with my analysis here especially since Newt has gone all green on us but whenever I read that he is unelectable I never really hear the reasons why. Is it because he once dumped his breast-cancer stricken wife in the hospital? is it because he's so yesterday, some retro-90s fit? is it something else? We say so so it shall be so, he has no place in the Matrix of Politics. Then again he's not Ron Paul:)

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Jaded Politics

This past Tuesday (Election Day) I chose not to vote. People act like you have a duty to vote even if all the candidates suck, never got this. Anyway Democrat Mike Spano won the mayoralty of Yonkers, wasn't even that close so because she brought it up first this Italian woman at work asked if I voted and I said no so then I asked her who she voted for just to make lite conversation. She said Spano of course and so I then engaged her in a series of questions all the time being the epitome of Civility because HELP ME TO UNDERSTAND!!! I'm just curious I said why so many voted for the guy, what was the attraction? Did he say he'd lower taxes and she said he talked about Education (oh) and she added children are our future (I've never heard this before) and so I said but they all say that and she conceded the point. I said Obama talked about education among other things and she even helped me finish my sentence - "but look what we got." The Yonkers election was personal for me, all those red-light cams in the big YO were put up under the Republican and pro-life administration of Mayor Phil Amicone so my philosophy is what difference does it make, nobody really represents ME and my interests and values and me, my brother and my friend too always somehow vote for the losing candidate. The power of your vote is definitely overrated, it's a kind of Quantum Mechanics, chaos theory applied to Politics (see I have been watching The Fabric of the Cosmos over on PBS) but getting back to the woman at work it's as if pols have some sort of Svengali-like influence over people. We hate their guts and make fun during normal times but when it comes time to vote and they open up their mouth we buy into it. Help me to understand. So basically but I didn't put it in these terms exactly I said to my co-worker but we know they're basically full of Shit and we vote for them anyway. All it takes is a charming facade......Now I hate Hitler analogies as much as the next responsible blogger but around Yonkers someone painted in a Hitler mustache on Spano's face on a bunch of signs of his and the motto underneath put there by the Spano campaign themselves simply says A NEW APPROACH. Get it? you have to laugh at this stuff. Funny thing is the cops didn't even take the signs down yet, maybe it's the first crack in political correctness after all. It's all good:)

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Thoughts on the Michael Jackson verdict

An LA jury finally gets one right, certainly there was no other choice on the technical merits than guilty of involuntary manslaughter and Dr. Conrad Murray will serve his four years in a county jail rather than the state prison or word on the legal street is he'll probably even get some form of house arrest and YET,

in another sense MICHAEL JACKSON is really the guilty party here and all his enablers down through the years, friends and family, everyone. People who suck you into their madness......Michael Jackson became a whining, cloying and needy creature ("give me my milk") and on balance Dr. Murray probably would not have gone with the powerful anesthetic propofol had not Michael Jackson insisted and become a baby about it Here's what I don 't get, MJ by then had already gone down as a legend in music history, he made his billions and yet these celebs have to stay in the limelight it seems, it's an obsession of theirs and so if he was just content with his monumental and phenomenal success up 'til that point so what if he couldn't sleep? What of it? he didn't have a 9-5 job or even a 7-3 like the average slob so in his life his chronic insomnia was really quite irrelevant to making ends meet so if need be screw the need to tour or whatever, your health's more important anyway. In a way Michael Jackson ruined Dr. Conrad Murray's whole life and career and as someone said to me yesterday maybe he's in his own type of hell right now. The perpetual Michael Jackson fan club is missing the Bigger Picture but they always do. I say this, if you wanna be weird be weird on your own time, don't involve the medical profession:)

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

A Herman Cain/Kim Kardashian blog

Herman Cain, shades of Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill. Look this is what happens when you're a conservative uppity nigger who thinks for yourself.

Things went downhill ever since Kris Humphries had to sit on that plane next to Ray J, he of the original Kardashian sex tape. Kim comes across as nominally more intelligent than Paris Hilton and somewhat less annoying than J-Lo who loves herself and she even has a line of something at Sears or Macy's. Andrea Peyser of the New York Post calls her a fame whore. I don't get all that worked up about it, for me it's just to pass the time while reading the morning paper. Word on the street is Justin Bieber may have gotten a girl pregnant. He's dipping and Kardashian is back on the market, hey ya never know. You know what gets me about Montel Williams who tokes the medical cannibus on a daily basis is he doesn't look or act like he has MS, bopping around on that infomercial with the juicer and he did do that talk show all those years, didn't look the worse for wear. Despite years and decades of steady medical and scientific advancements you mean to tell me the only thing that can manage your pain is pot? c'mon! I think he's fronting or as they say in England fron-Ting. A word to the Madoffs, next time try jumping:)

Friday, October 28, 2011

What is the role of government?

This is the essence of ALL of our blogging when you get right down to it, a distillation of our political POVs. Soapie likes local states but not the federal government, Dave sees a clear role for the feds. Beth is a charitable person but wants this to be her own decision. Saty says time and again we don't understand what socialism is, we need to do our homework but I beg to differ, we have enough of an idea. Throw this out there, would YOU eat at Soapie's Libertarian Meat Market and Deli? (this is of course a utopian place, a figment of our imaginations where the USDA rules don't apply to him). I was struck my Mal's rather agnostic position on abortion as stated in the previous blog, basically take abortion as an issue off the political table, scrape that dried crap off the plate and into the garbage bin which is interesting since pro-choicers then would no longer have any say in party platforms either. While we're at it get RACE off the table too, don't wanna offend the guests. Herman Cain, the current GOP frontrunner is pro-life among other great things. I say this, his 9-9-9 is at least better than the 666 Plan but should we not vote for him because he doesn't subscribe to Mal's wisdom which also happens to be Pam's? OK so you go into soapie's place and ask for a roast beef wedge with all the trimmings and a big pickle and a side of potato salad only his deli clerk ain't wearing any gloves, maybe you just caught him scratching his nuts as you walked in but as my instructor in a food-safety course once said latex or vinyl gloves are overrated, people somehow get a false sense of security with gloves since they get dirty too especially if you're not constantly changing 'em and then you gotta order extra gloves which runs you into some money. If I may put words into soapie's mouth since I kinda got the gist by now and I know he's on a coffee break at his law firm and is reading this and will respond shortly -- better that one person get diarrhea so his staff can learn than have the feds come in and say how it's gotta be. So the free-market has some dribbles, that's the beauty of it. I would hazard a guess Dave ain't eating there either:)

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The libertarian conundrum

If a child cannot be born (because of abortion) how can it enjoy Liberty? WE have a great libertarian package for you IF you manage to be born.

Friday, October 21, 2011

The death of Khadafy which begs the question......

why all the instantaneous graphic imagery but not with bin Laden? We were even treated to a bullet hole in the head shot but we STILL have nothing on any bin Laden death photos, in a vault somewhere. Shaw has recently taken some of us to task because we conservatives don't want to give Obama credit for taking out bin Laden. Speaking for myself it's not that I don't want to honey it's just that OBL's death was never independently verified by objective sources other than the government. Oh yeah another difference, the Libyans still have Khadafy's body whereas bin Laden if it was him was thrown overboard practically 12 hours later. Yeah we're all happy about the latest developments but on the flipside Bibi has just released about 1,000 Palestinian terrorists in exchange for one young Israeli soldier held by Hamas for five years. A word about NATO, ostensibly when the Libyan rebels began to gather steam in the latest chapter of the Arab Spring NATO was simply supposed to enforce something called a No Fly Zone, that's it, now they're kinda in the assassination racket sort of. Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Khadafy all on Obama's watch and I heard the faintest stirrings in the msm this morning that he's somehow being credited with the death of the mad Colonel as well. Ah well Happy You Tubing!!!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

McDonaldizing the gangster

It's soon to be in production but John Travolta is gonna star in a new biopic about the late John Gotti. I'm kind of past this stage in my life, for me the genre of the mobster peaked with The Godfather trilogy. I'm so into other stuff and on a really slow Friday nite (showing my age since I'm not clubbing) I'll dig Sam and Dean on Supernatural even though I have no idea what the hell is going on. Heh, Simon showing his human side on The X Factor last night by apologizing to a contestant he just booted and bringing her back into the fold. He's losing his edge, he's been McDonaldized too. Flicks glamorize a life of crime, Burger King could have soda cups with Gotti et al on 'em and Moms would buy 'em for their kids. We've lost our moral compass. Few months back there was a major and I mean major federal roundup of some major mobsters and folks were writing letters to the New York Post all angry at the feds, leave the guys alone! I really don't do gangster blogs since, who knows a gangster might be reading this right now but it's how I feel. Been rereading parts of Maury Terry's Ultimate Evil since updated and some weird shit went down in Yonkers in the '70s and '80s. Seems some Satanic cult had regular meetings in Untermyer Park on North Broadway and killed some German Sheperds and left 'em on the Aqueduct, Berkowitz may have been involved. Personally know of stories of hospital workers at St. John's seeing the torches and hearing the chanting on some evenings, 'magine you're a patient who just had some major work done and you're recuperating and you lurch towards the window by the River and see some stuff. Been kinda sporadically blogging of late more like a hobby, the old work schedule again. Went to the biggest bookstore I've ever been in my life yesterday, the two-decker job with escalators Barnes & Noble in Poughkeepsie on Rte. 9, didn't buy anything but it was an experience. Is it just my imagination but are stores getting bigger? maybe I can do my walk there. Going home now to enjoy some fine African Rooibos Red Tea, good for the allergies:)

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Well hell it's a job but still

Pureeing the topics here but let's get back to retail for a minute. One of my friends who works at the supermarket end of things is a kind of source for scuttlebutt that's happening in that sector of the economy. You remember KRONOS don't you? (and btw don't tell me that's just a phonetic version of "chronology" or something), now add to this the growing field of mystery shoppers. Now I don't know what the going rate for them is but basically they pretend to be your average casual shopper, they come in and then after they leave the store or place of business they grade how well each department did in terms of whatever the Company deems important (e.g. suggestive selling, "how are you today?" etc.). Now I realize the economy is bad but would you do this for even a temporary living? get other workers in trouble really who are just trying to get by? Word on the street is some major supermarket chains will even go to the lengths of finding out which employee was lacking and maybe even write him/her up. This kind of gangsterism is not good for morale imo and stuff like this tends to happen when a company is not doing well, they're looking for answers and don't know what to do so they come up with crap like this. Truthfully I'd rather be unemployed than rat people out to pay my rent and once they make use of mystery shoppers the company seems to become practically obsessed with the topic like nothing else matters (e.g. low prices, a safe work environment). BTW checked out the new Gordon Ramsay culinary collection yesterday at K-Mart, not bad especially the digital 12-Cup coffeemaker:)

Friday, October 14, 2011

Loose movements and solid movements




Say what you will the Tea Party Movement is a solid movement, a sign of political health which leads me to the drift of the thread title here. The Occupy Wall Street crowd have made Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan their home with the blessing of Mayor Bloomberg who originally said they want to take jobs away from the City. There have been reports of public urination and defecation and public sex too. Now if I were a protester and wanted people to respect me and my message or at least be open-minded would I engage in such behavior? What a bunch of dirtbags, arrogant brats! The NYPD have held off removing them from Zuccotti Park at least for today no doubt due in large part to the msm's bias here in favor of the hippies. It's spreading to other major cities, has metastasized and labor unions and assorted NYC pols support them and even President Obama seems in support. In short Tea Party - Bad, Occupy Wall Street - Good. Now there is such a thing as Corporate Greed but why these people? have they never grown up? These trust-fund babies without jobs, go flip a burger or something. I deliberately held off awhile on this topic in contrast to some other conservative bloggers because I wanted to see how I feel first, let it sift through, brew for a time and see how it smells but it don't smell good. Hey Mayor Bloomberg isn't there hygiene laws to enforce and give people their park back. On a totally unrelated sidenote my friend and I were in Rockland County some time back and I stopped in a liquor store on a shopping strip on 57 and said to him later the young guy helping me sounded gay, had the accent going not that there's anything wrong with it so my friend educated me - "he has that metro-Jew voice like Bloomberg", you know with the high tonal quality. Just a cultural note:)

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The priest shortage

While we're on the subject of faith this topic came up recently in our parish because our parochial vicar was just reassigned upstate and now our pastor is running the parish all by himself basically and saying most of the Masses with only an occasional helping hand and btw the priest who was just sent upstate will be running that parish by himself too which seems to be the trend these days. In the latest bulletin our lone priest/pastor now gave statistics on the priest shortage, only one new priest ordained in the whole Archdiocese of New York in the month of May and he further gave the numbers on how many parishes in Westchester and surrounding counties are now being run by one priest. Suffice to say quite a few in fact but this begs the question as unfair as it may seem to him and others and make no mistake saying that many Masses is hard work but isn't this the marketplace in operation? The vast majority of men do not opt for the celibate lifestyle which is still a requirement for the Catholic priesthood so you can pray for vocations all you want and petition God on a weekly basis but that still won't change the marketplace or the reality. Of course for too many men these days who aren't even priests there is the depressing matter of involuntary celibacy, those existential drought periods of poor gas station porn and carpel-tunnel syndrome but even for these poor souls caught in the orbit of Outer Darkness sex or meeting someone or eventually falling in love is still a goal if not reached in this life then the next. Deliberate celibacy has always struck me as somehow going against Nature but be that as it may my pastor acts like a bunch of us men are supposed to just stop what we're doing after maybe a lengthy period of reflection and spiritual introspection and sign up to be priests. Ain't gonna work that way, there's too strong a pull in the opposite direction. Change the rules and you'll get more priests:)

Friday, October 07, 2011

Steve Jobs and a philosophical question that pops up

Would you rather be astoundingly wealthy, a gazillion or have your health? You can live in a mansion and die fairly young or you can sit on your patio in all your middle-class stature on a fine autumn afternoon and enjoy feeding your cats or your dogs or if you don't have them just reading a book. Though I'm a strong capitalist by nature I don't envy the superrich, that societal trend has always irritated me. While I don't want to punish them like Obama I am philosophically balanced, they don't bother me but I don't want to be one of them. Personally I'd rather have my health.

Steve Jobs, Apple Founder and Tech Genius -- 1955-2011, RIP

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Watson is my boss

Have a friend who works in a supermarket and he told me the other day that when the workers punch in now there's a handy device on the wall with a lens that scans their thumbprint. Fred Flintstone with his punchcard is so yesterday. You'd think a deli clerk or a part-time butcher were working for the CIA or the FBI or Interpol and I'm not even sure they do this (side issue -- why do so many women who work in supermarkets have man hands?). What's next, retinal-scans like in Minority Report? So the name of the company the supermarket contracted with is, get this, KRONOS. Why that? sounds too sci-fi to me, a little off I said and my friend gave me the deep background on Kronos. Seems in mythology Kronos was the father of Zeus and there was a prophecy that one of Kronos' sons was gonna do Dad in, kill him and take over so when they were born Kronos ate Poseiden and Hades. Who says ancient Greek/Roman mythology is boring? it's chockful of Sex and Violence. Anyways Zeus' mother knew what was coming so when she was pregnant with Zeus and gave birth she wrapped a big old rock in some swaddling clothes and Kronos ate it. Zeus later cut off Kronos' testicles and penis and threw it in the ocean where it gave rise to Aphrodite. You remember Venus in a pink shell don't ya? Now all that's fine for a college lit class but why would a major technical company choose such a name with such a negative bio behind it and why would a major food chain even do business with them? and how come the Union never got involved and issue a statement or even inform its members? It's because the New World Order'ers are Weird that's why, everyday is a Renaissance Festival inside their heads. BTW the term for scanning your thumbprint to start work and punch in and out for Lunch and go home later is biometric, remember that word and the whole stated rationale is that some workers are using other workers to clock themselves in using their punchcards. Old story new solution. Well that's the cover story anyway but my gut tells me there's more, much more to the story like that cat Willow that wandered all the way from Colorado to New York City and was lost for five years until some shelter ID'ed him 'cause the family had a microchip put in him, that's gonna be YOU in the not too distant future ("Don't worry m'am, Hank's just having an affair"). Now who's behind all this? I'd say our friends the Masons, those who like to worship statues of owls in the Bohemian Grove and stuff like that, a little Osiris action. Basically they're Nutz and now we hear that Watson is gonna look over some folks' medical records and make instant diagnoses, save time and money. The times they're'a gettin' weird:)

Saturday, October 01, 2011

Stalking the customer




Personally I don't like it when I walk into a place and get accosted by some sales clerk asking me what I need, there's a touch of the used-car lot. Well I don't know man, I might be in a blue-funk mood working on some issues and just need to browse for awhile, clear my head like my friend does and I'll know it when I see it (geez that's a nice travel mug). Can't just fart around anymore. Some places, supermarkets for instance, have what is called the 10 Foot Rule whereby every worker is supposed to engage every customer within a 10' radius which is fine in theory but in reality you'd get no work done. I actually came across a phrase once called customer intimacy - dunno what it means, having sex with the customer? Maybe this is tied in with suggestive selling, dunno. I was in a department store in the Poughkeepsie Galleria while on vacation this past week and just wanted to pay for my item but the older woman at the register who's from Yonkers btw asked me a couple times if I have a Rewards Card, I said no and she pursued but would I like to have one and no I don't want to give to the March of Dimes so I said I don't shop here that much so I'd just like to pay for this and be on my way and btw your weird fluorescent lighting is killing me (that was in my head but didn't say it, some folks know what I mean, others don't as their zombified brains have been killed by the stuff already). I like the smaller shops in town, you don't get this corporate-imposed mentality of stalking the customer, just good old-fashioned service. Got my kinkeliba tea from the Amazing Grace Variety African Market on Main St. in downtown Poughkeepsie the other day, that's a great medicinal tea from some bushy shrub in West Africa called the healing tree and so my friend and I chatted with them for awhile. They know what they have to do, don't need some head honcho corporate strategist with a Cracker Jax degree issuing endless edicts through e-mails while the company slowly goes bankrupt. If kinkeliba is really the cure for Cancer you'll never know about it, there's no money in it. Christmas is right around the corner, my God how time flies and if I see some bargains I may shop early. When I don't know what to get people it's mainly money and booze, the good stuff and a couple fine cigars if they smoke. As the late George Carlin so eloquently said when he pays for something and the clerk goes have a nice day - "have a nice day? just give me my fucking change."

Friday, September 30, 2011

Mitt Romney - I can't get all that jazzed up about the guy

First off his health care program in Massachusetts was the model for Obamacare. Judging from his latest debate performance with Rick Perry (oh, are there others?) he doesn't seem to want to touch the third rail of Social Security so that's second. Third off he seems rather bland, very bland in fact like a safe conservative choice in a polyester suit (read: moderate). I believe that as we speak he's pro-life but I don't think he's firmly rooted in any one direction except the zeitgeist or the base or whatever, four. Mormonism, you can take it or leave it but for me it has just the touch of the cult but that's not a five. I'm just not that into him. The GOP Establishment (Nancy Reagan, Henry Kissinger, Bush, the New York Post) pushing Chris Christie on us has the feel of someone trying to fix you up and I always hated that. It's the pushing that I find suspect (what, nobody else out there?) and Ron Paul is McCain's age. It'd take the edge away if Hillary ran against Obama which usually when there's no primary to speak of it means the guy's a champion but c'mon. A champion to whom, Shaw? Personally I prefer to watch X Factor, it takes my mind off things:)

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Bobby Farrell is a slut

More and more I'm reading in the papers these days about cyberbullying, cyberharassment and that sort of thing and sometimes it goes like this. Happens in school alot apparently but in the adult world some anonymous blogger out there posts defamatory and mean crap about somebody who they may have crossed paths with at some time or other or maybe they had some ill-fated lover affair with the other person, the victim I guess we can call him or her finds out about it, calls them out on it and eventually takes it to court. Case the other day I read about where a guy's ex is warning other women via the Web to have nothing to do with the creep and he's fighting it in the courts. Well in order to win how do we empirically prove he's a creep or not without following him around all day documenting his every move? A woman model is said to be a real slut so how do we go about proving that one too and yet sometimes these people win in court. Is she a 'ho, is she chaste or is she something in between? We've no way of really knowing and I don't want to know. As ugly as free speech can be and I'm not endorsing this by any stretch but by my libertarian calculations it should be allowed which is not the same thing as saying you should do it. Young college student jumps off the GW Bridge 'cause his roommate webcammed or something his gay sexual liaison and they wanna bring him up on a hate crime. New term - cybercide, causing somebody else to take their own life by what you post on the Web. Again very poor moral judgement used but as well-intentioned as the law is I can't go along with this. As I've said elsewhere the Law should never ever be based on our very subjective interpretations but that's more and more the case these days. BTW I apologize to any Bobby Farrells out there, it's just some kind of fictitious composite:)

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Unconventional thoughts on conventional wisdom

As any regular reader of this blog well knows I am no fan of Conventional Wisdom. It's too pat for starters, I hate it 'cause it's a herd mentality fossilized over time and it nudges at you because you know it's bullshit. Just to get the ball rolling here these are five plucked merely at random:

Rejection is not personal - The hell it is. If the woman is perfectly available and you are too and she says no then there's just something about YOU buddy. Could be your bank account, might be your one eyebrow but it's Something. Chances are she'll never tell you but keep digging.

You need 3 square meals a day - Not unless you're digging ditches. In fact it's that third meal that's packing on the pounds, I believe we've covered this at length at this blog but we like to err on the side of eating a little too much because of all the media coverage of anorexia which statisticwise is rather rare. A subset of this is that Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, since when? I suspect it's just to sell product. Usually I grab a doughnut or a buttered roll with my coffee and get going, don't have time.

Time heals all wounds - Partial wisdom at best, open to debate. Many times the wound is a dull ache after all these years but it can come back, that's why we have Scotch. All the survivors of 9/11, they'd beg to differ. I don't get my wisdom from a Hallmark card anyway.

Paranoia is a bad thing - Couple times I suspected they were talking about me at work, turns out I was right. A little paranoia keeps you safe but use it sparingly. Overtrusting is not a virtue believe you me especially when you consider that 1 out of X number of people in the general population is keeping it psycho. BTW stop talking about me.

Watch your health - This is a philosophical thing. Nothing wrong with watching your health up to a point but at what point do we cease enjoying the things Life has to offer? Sure sometimes I'll opt for the apple, another staple of conventional wisdom but many times I'll go for the Suzy Q because it's there. BTW they're making them smaller.

Just a partial list, the merest tip of the iceberg. What's your thing or have you too drunk deep of the Propaganda?

Monday, September 26, 2011

Mr. Port Authority Toll Hikes as the savior of the GOP?

They won't give him up and I'm not getting it. Some influential GOPers, some real Republican movers and shakers, didn't quite get their names but a large swath of them are former Bush donors which should tell you something right there and they're practically stalking NJ Governor Chris Christie to enter the rather disappointing field. Calling his office at all hours of the day, sending love letters, behind his shower curtain, in his closet, behind him in the diner. Saw a few recent pictures of the Governor and is it just me or has he gotten Bigger? He seems positively gargantuan these days and practically dwarfs out everyone else in the picture. Now when I was having a weight problem myself not that long ago I got out of the shower one evening and looked at myself in the mirror and said OK this and no more so at what point do you even stop noticing these things? PUT DOWN THE FUCKING KRISPY KREMES!!!!!! Not exactly a role model for our yoot so what does it cost to cross the GW Bridge these days 12 bucks for cash-paying commuters? going up to 15 I believe in a couple of years and this is the Savior of the GOP party just 'cause Rick Perry had a couple dismal debates??? You know I was never that great at the whole job interview thing but I think I'm a real kickass worker just the same. God help us and already those red-light cams are sprouting up all over Jersey like some vast police state. BTW did you catch NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly on 60 Minutes last night? I'd be afraid to scratch my nuts. Oh yeah I knew this was coming but apparently technology is in the works for those traffic cams to be rejiggered somehow to see how fast you're going too, that's being discussed in Albany right now believe it or not. You know when you consider that most towns, villages and city speed limits are artificially low I'd go bankrupt. The topic of Chris Christie causes me to ramble but just 'cause he has a penchant for the blunt talk ("get the hell off the beach!") and can somehow control a budget but not his own food intake doesn't mean you have to get all hot and sweaty, have a man crush on the guy. It's like they want to take him in the woods and Ned Beatty him or something. Palin/Bachmann, now that's your ticket. We can at least see who can out-brainfart each other:)

Friday, September 23, 2011

The Obama Platform is what exactly?

That I'm trying to do the right thing but am constantly prevented? that my heart is in the right place...It's not so much a list of accomplishments to run on so I'm not really getting why he wants us to vote for him again. He reminds me of a whiny contestant on X Factor, someone who wasn't that great to begin with but who won't get off the stage and feels the judges' decision is some kind of cosmic injustice speaking of which I think the best contestant so far was that Diana Ross lookalike on the first night forget the name. Absolutely phenomenal but she needs to reduce the waterworks. Simon seems somehow nicer this time 'round with L.A. Reid kinda towing the line here. New Girl, mildly funny but felt it didn't live up to its advance hype all through the summer although I really really like the name Zooey Deschanel. The new 5-0, my brother feels it's bad writing. On the Season Premiere a secret cam hidden in an old clock in the late Governor's residence that could exonerate McGarrett of her murder and Danno busts it with his foot 'cause he doesn't have a screwdriver handy and there he is on the tape Wo Fat killing the guv and framing Steve but his head is somehow cut off, well he is the Archvillain after all who gets away all the time. I'll give it a chance and at least they cover other ground besides serial killers but if they're to be really faithful to the original Chin Ho has to get shot and thrown from a car. Somebody at work has the Irritable Bowel Syndrome and one of the stalls is for all practical purposes unuseable. How can we turn a profit if people don't even know basic potty training? I feel I'm right about all things but do I expect people to agree with me all the time? No, it's ain't realistic and that's the trouble with alot of blogging these days. My God so you don't agree with Ron Paul you're not a true conservative, when did this happen? This is supposed to be fun, kind of coffee klatchy and I see our friend Tony Bennett has made some controversial comments about 9/11. Doesn't he look like some friendly uncle you had when you were a kid and you just got ripped a new one by Mom and Dad and he talks to you in the alley and asks you what's wrong and says but they really love you and gives you a 5-dollar bill to go get an ice cream cone? Looks real good for his age. OK what'cha got?

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Social insecurity

Is Rick Perry right, is Social Security a Ponzi scheme?

Friday, September 16, 2011

Once you go black sometimes you go back - Sarah Palin's jungle fever

Joe McGuiness has written a new one, The Rogue, a kind of unauthorized bio of Sarah Palin. Now every book has to have what they call a hook these days to sell, in Barbara Walters' case it was her affair not that I care and so in this case we learn of Sarah Palin's past coke use (presumably we're not talking about the classic American carbonated beverage here) but even bigger is (brace yourself all you racist teabaggers out there, got a chair? sit down)......seems when she was a junior in her college days she had a one-night stand with some 6'10" black basketball player by the name of Glen Rice (he's trending right now as we speak). Now as a husband you don't want to hear this stuff, your spouse's past episodes of high sluttery when they do come out are bad enough but Sarah back then was 5'4" or 5'5" or something and the African-American gentlemen was 6'10" so you know some really freaky stuff went down. Sure that was back in the day but that toxic crap really gets in your psyche I don't care what you say, it's lurking in your mental attic somewhere in some cobwebbed corner with the baseball mitts and the Flexible Flyer (permanently emblazoned images of your beloved churchgoing wife guzzling it down like a milk shake, getting bopped in the head with IT). The other thing is some of today's biggest conservative women moralizers have been yesterday's biggest cat-bitches in heat (e.g. Dr. Laura) so maybe they should be the first to get this stuff out, just sayin' but what I think Mr. McGuiness is doing here and he's known to not like Republicans but he's masturbating the Tea Partier's mind which he sees as most liberals do as lurking in the racist fever swamps, some gap-toothed old red-headed farmer who sneaks into his daughter's room at night telling his wife hey get a load of this, Sarah Palin once fucked some big black buck. He's niggerizing the debate, agitating the political discourse never that high to begin with and maybe somebody should start writing unauthorized biographies of all the unauthorized biographers out there. Start with him, Kitty Kelley......but damn I just thought of something, what if there's a Sex Tape out there? Michele Bachmann dear, I hoped you lived a fairly clean life:)

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

9/11 - the most historic event in recent history

I had thought when I went to work Monday morning some folks would have a different perspective in light of the preceding day's solemn and extremely moving events, don't worry about stupid stuff......uhm, no. We don't discuss current events much, I'm always the one to bring up the topic but then again I never married my job. It's been years since I read the late Claire Sterling's seminal work The Terror Network published in 1981 and what's changed is that then terrorism was mainly political whereas today's it's largely inspired by a warped vision of God. Sure Hamas and Hezbollah are still political but it's a weird development, after the Cold War never dreamed we'd be at war with radical Islam. You don't believe in Allah and we'll kill you, when did that happen? Saw Frontline's "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" the other night which while superbly produced and asked legitimate questions somehow left me uninspired and empty. Doesn't anyone ponder this puzzle that God chose to give us the gift of free will and that means the freedom to choose evil in many cases, to make bad decisions and that all too often those bad choices negatively, even tragically impact and impose themselves on others, the good, the innocent, the virtuous? Put another way if God forced you to be faithful to your spouse it wouldn't mean anything so I'm a little more on God's side here and also if you never had Evil could you really appreciate the Good? If the world was always and forever a perpetual Eden with no tears and sorrow, no suffering and no death would we even know what the Good is? How horrible those people died on that day and your immediate thought is there but for the grace of God. To make that terrible terrible decision to die in overwhelming fire or to jump 80 or even 100 stories hand in hand with a complete stranger in some cases. My own mother many months before this even happened was sitting on the couch one day and said she had a very bad feeling. She felt cold she said and then said she felt something very terrible was gonna happen to the World Trade Center and it's always struck me to this day. I've heard others say similar things so I do believe in a kind of psychic reality. 9/11 unified us as never before and how could it not? I'm sure those people who chose to jump sometimes again with that complete stranger were not contemplating their political differences or the stupid stuff that went on at work last week and that's one of the great lessons here. The other is this tragic event so mind-boggling in the magnitude of its sheer evil, this existentially surreal Happening brought out the worst but more importantly the best in Humanity. We also went from the sublime to Rachel Uchitel becoming one of Tiger Woods' bevy of mistresses so the poetic always somehow becomes mixed with the tabloid culture but that's to be expected. Then there was my lady boss who yesterday was doing her work as usual and asked me what date it is and I'm thinking but didn't say it just how uninformed are you? I mean I'm not a nerd or anything but when you go home what do you do? Do you at least pop on the News for 10 or 15 minutes before going to bed? Again an extremely moving and poignant day and make no mistake, we live in a post 9/11-centric world. It imbues all our thoughts, our very psyche and it did affect my sleep that night. Though it was an adequate sleep it was a kind of somber and fitful slumber and my dreams and thoughts drifted back to this tragic framework brought on by the day's events. What are your thoughts?

Friday, September 09, 2011

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Advertising you'll never see

Everybody has to be the best and they resent it when somebody questions their #1 status, challenges the orthodoxy. Take the new Weight Watchers commercial with Jennifer Hudson which says rated best by US News and World Report. Now that's mainly a geopolitical mag so WW may as well have been endorsed by Popular Mechanics and you know it just got under their skin that Consumer Reports recently rated Jenny Craig the best weight-loss program out there. So why can't WW simply say we're a good approach among many, it's an option and the same thing goes for Boar's Head. They just have to be the world's #1 cold cut, can't say look we're a damn good slice but hey if you like the Black Bear or Thumann's that's up to you. Advertising is all bullshit, it's childish but it is what it is. Now everyone can't be #1, why can't you just say you have a good product and leave it at that? Trojans......

Friday, September 02, 2011

House of Tea




I'm more a coffee person than a tea guy but this Muslim guy at work turned me on to a new tea I never heard of before and it comes from his home country of Senegal in West Africa. Basically you get some kinkeliba leaves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combretum_micranthum), soak 'em first to clean 'em and then steep the leaves in a small pot of boiling water. He uses a medium flame and covers the top with foil, takes several minutes and says when the leaves turn from green or olive to all brown it's done. Another way of telling it's starting to be done he said is if you pass the corner with it on the stove and get a good whiff of it it's definitely brewing. Now it's been studied by Science for a long time and I really couldn't google that much info on it as the articles tend to be short or stubs as wiki calls them but it's a therapeutic or medicinal tea and as near as I could gather it has uses in treating malaria, aids in weight loss, helps with your digestion and is an important detoxifying agent. I was discussing this with my Muslim co-worker and he says it's almost as if they want to keep it a secret, no money in it. He also said Senegal or West Africa has other teas with uses in medicine, one that cures asthma he said and I'm like but why didn't I know about this? Just the other day I went into a Mrs. Green's Natural Market in Mt. Kisco and while they have quite an impressive array of all the global teas on the back wall the woman in charge never heard of the tonic so I briefly explained to her. She thought maybe I was looking for gingko biloba but basically I just left at that point because their power was off due to Irene and it's kinda hard browsing in the shadows. I really really like this tea, it's made me feel 10X better and he likes to add mint leaves to the brew but I like to take it plain and get that pure flavor. It makes me work better too I think, I'll be zipping along and the others are just dragging all day. Not an easy tea to find, he gets his in Harlem but that ain't my neck of the woods. So get a good tea party rockin' and get all that crap out of your system:)

Saturday, August 27, 2011

I really don't think we're ready for the Apocalypse




First the baby 'quake up the East Coast last week with all the Manhattan office people standing around outside with the cell phones and then the tweetathons and now Hurricane Irene. Now I don't downplay this stuff but I finally know what a sheeple is. A group of sheeple go to the supermarket and wipe out the entire Poland Spring aisle even though they live in an area that is not going to get the brunt of the storm, maybe some tropical unpleasantness and meanwhile the poor supermarket stockclerk is down in the basement getting ready to put a new U-boat of the H2O on the lift. Gotta get some OT in so that's cutting into his circle-jerking time at home and by then he won't be in the Mood. On the flip side you have your retail/food businesses who never want to close, gotta get in that last sale and trade and having a resume peppered with such jobs it's always amazed me that even a day or two prior to some much predicted weather cataclysm it's not even a topic on the table for discussion. Sure you have to see what it's gonna be first but these places never want to close and if you get hit by a falling tree or electrocuted on the way over you can always be replaced by a handy ad in the PennySaver and maybe your boss will say a few words to your Mom at the wake. OK so you went to Home Depot for your generator and your batteries and lanterns but the media coverage OMG! Now bear in mind this was this past Thursday at least three days prior to the Main Event here in the Tri-State area and all day long in their pre-Irene coverage they weren't really saying anything new, just repeating the same old stuff like your repetitive uncle who comes to visit...spaghetti models, new term which basically means we don't know nuthin' fer sure yet. NJ Gov Chris Christie: "Get the hell off the beach!" Oh why don't you talk like a professional once in a while you overtouted GOP doughboy who along with NY Governor Andrew Cuomo just approved a set of massive Port Authority toll hikes. Mayor Bloomberg lives for these moments. Finally heard the ad for Romantic Depot on the John Tesh radio show the other night coming home from work, some nice socially-respectable sounding lady voiceover talking about lotions and gels and DVDs for him and her so make sure you have enough of that on hand and the batteries too. Now I'm all for the free speech, don't get me wrong but the commercial made it sound like they're gonna work real hard to make your marriage or relationship stronger when the more mundane reality is just some browser box with some scared Asian girl on the cover handling three dicks along with the fetish clown video. Saw in the paper liquor lines in NYC overly long which reminds me. Wish me luck, I'm gonna go to K-mart later for some T-shirts. I hope I can get around. WORKING THEORY: the media wants to bump up the Economy, Irene can do that. Maybe they have stock:)

Saturday, August 20, 2011

So what's the karmic deal yo?

Just how does a particular religious system influence people's behavior? Are Christians better than others? more moral, more ethical, somehow more virtuous? Are they the salt of the earth? You'd think so but to give a perfectly honest answer in my long experience......NO, uh-uh. For example to put it in the work context again I've had my share of Christian bosses, some Catholic bosses. Many were underhanded, screwed the worker, weren't fair and as for other Christians they gossip, backstab, throw others under the bus with the best of them. Not an indictment of Christianity btw since I'm a Christian myself but why this contradiction? I'm going to heavily paraphrase from a point made over at Lista's, gonna do some major-league spinning myself here but the idea of you can keep on sinning and just keep going to Christ who will forgive you over and over and over again...I think the average Christian feeling liberated from the whole karmic cycle feels he or she can do what they want and get forgiven later. OK maybe that's an oversimplication but to paraphrase from St. Augustine "make me not gossip Lord or throw other people under the bus but not yet." Many Christians behave like the rest of the lot and then take their Souls to the cleaners on Sunday as my brother likes to say. The Christian/Catholic running the department now, doesn't strike me as being overly ethical, maybe the Church is more a social watering-hole......Perhaps the karmic believers are better people, live better lives because karma is so much more demanding and unforgiving and yes fear-inspiring. Pope Benedict would do well to address the issue again as he's addressed karma in the past and is well familiar with the topic. I believe it was when he was Cardinal he made the point that the beauty of Christianity is that Christ enables you to break free from the harsh and never-ending cycle of karma, that's the positive aspect but on the downside imo is the general character of today's Christian. The Pope would do well to talk up the issue again this time in the context of you people are misapplying Christ's Message and the Gospel if you think you can just go on sinning and......but is karma real? does it actually operate in this life in the here and now and not just in lives to come? A stronger variation of the biblical you reap what you sow I've seen some evidence. I'd love to hear examples here from the resident bloggers who are big on karma. As a rule I generally don't blog about presidential vacations, God knows they all take them so I just wanted to go with a karmic thrust today:)

Friday, August 19, 2011

Are most people selfish?

There are some very interesting discussions going on at Lista's about karma and I will be expanding on some of the points like, oh I don't know tomorrow or beginning of next week but the topic of selfishness is too broad here. Are most people selfish? Since we spend so much time at work I'll put it in my usual context of the workplace (after 1,000 posts it's still a tick on my ass). Dunno if my place is a microcosm, God I hope not! but I've come to the conclusion that most folks are selfish. Now they're not viciously selfish, they come across as quite nice. They don't have fangs and will buy you a cup of coffee but when push comes to shove their interests come first. Take vacation time. We have a problem going on right now where everybody wants to take their vacations at the same time and we're not talking a week off here and there but like a month devoted to European travel alone. Now back in the day I still remember a system, a kind of unwritten code that you took turns, you went and then he went and then she went when Bob got back and if you had to sacrifice for the good of the Company by pushing up your much-looked-forward-to vacation by a week or two well that just showed what kind of a sterling guy or gal you were. Now it's like this isn't even an afterthought and I've spotted another trendoid and it has to do with new hires. Now many of these monstrous jaunts, random globetrekking are being taken by the fairly new employee, the recently hired and it's not that they're getting paid for all this free time but that's not the point. It's still leisure time and the department runs less effectively due to their prolonged absences, the burden then being shifted onto the few who remain like moi. I asked a co-worker about this, new workers pushing for and getting massive time off when they haven't even put in a year yet. I queried him well is it a part of some contract, some kind of secret handshake, an overly generous boss, some spit the love juice out from under the table kind of a deal but he said no, that they just have their minds set on going is all, doesn't matter if they started a new job. Of course back in the day when you were lucky enough to get hired for a spanking new job you would happily wait and chug along until you qualified for at least one full week of paid vacation time and then it would properly accrue over time but this selfishness thing is cutting across all age and ethnic groups, spilling over all kinds of boundaries and it's not just the young, an easy enough group to pick on although I don't like working with them either. Calling Out Sick, that's another one. Now I don't do it anymore but the few times I did in the past I at least chose a day when it would have the least impact, made sure there were enough people on staff. Not anymore, I've seen people simply call out sick even if the whole day depended on their presence and not a twinge of guilt upon their return. The selfishness thing is kind of disturbing, the blitheness with which it's practiced and goes straight to our character deficit in this country. Since this ultimately ties into the whole karma thing I'll be working on that one next. As I said to my friend once I think we were born in the wrong era:)

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

If Obama were Bush......

You see this is why I REALLY hate politics, folks can't admit the obvious. Let's say everything that's happening under Obama's term now happened to Bush, the 9-9.2% jobless rate, the historic downgrading of our credit, entering into yet another recession (actually in my view the old recession never really ended just that the "experts" pronounced that we were out of it, remember that one?), the failure of our mission in Libya however you define it, our Syria non-policy, troop surges in Afghanistan and the two wars never really ending...well I daresay liberals would most assuredly hold Bush responsible, the buck stops with him and that's right and proper (disagree with me if you like but I'm consistent). OK let's just focus on the unemployment rate and that historic because it never happened before S&P downgrading of our credit rating since those are the two biggies here the fact remains that this happened on Obama's watch just like if they happened on Bush's watch it would be fair to say there was a lack of leadership. You see it's like this, let's say you have a store manager or a branch manager or even a company president. Charles is a swell guy, quite popular, chats with the workers around the coffee machine every morning, is good for morale, honors their birthdays when the time comes and all the other positive stuff but some of the workers aren't doing the right thing, some of the department heads ain't doing the right thing either. The place isn't functioning quite right, profits are down, maybe you can't put your finger on it but would it be fair to hold Charlie personally responsible? YES, a 1,000X yes because when anything bad happens in a business or government entity or a religious institution (e.g. the Church sex abuse scandals) the buck has to stop with someone and that someone is the head, it happened on his or her watch, he or she didn't lead, didn't have oversight. Democrats like John Kerry can call it the Tea Party downgrade if they like but that doesn't change the fact that the S&P action happened on Obama's watch and no other president's watch. What I see in President Obama is a lack of leadership, a failure to take personal responsibility and they're not the qualities and virtues I look for in a leader. What I also see is an incestuous relationship with Hollywood. Now Sony Studios which has been the biggest booster of Obama in Hollywood has a movie in the works about the raid that killed bin Laden (of course the events of that day are highly questionable but that's another blog for another day so for now just to make a point). Rep. Peter King is rightly indignant about all the leaking of classified information that's going into the making of the movie but here's the kicker, it's due to be released to the general public about a month before the 2012 elections. I've rambled on long enough but the death of bin Laden doesn't somehow magically delete the S&P downgrade or create millions of new jobs. I think race is a factor too. We all want the nation's first black president to be a success, to be more than a footnote in History or a piece of trivia in an almanac but it ain't working out that way. It's just way past time for liberals to man up and admit the obvious:)

Monday, August 15, 2011

Our Syria non-policy

What if we had gone after Syrian president/dictator Bashar al-Assad instead of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy? well about 2,000 Syrian protesters might still be alive today. What if we didn't have wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment maybe we could have gone after BOTH. Maybe if we didn't get involved in any of this mishegas we could devote full-time to the escalating crisis in Somalia, a country without a functioning government where 30,000 children have died from cholera there in just the last 3 months alone in this the land of Famine and Drought. The Arab Spring has turned into the long hot summer. We preferred to do business with Assad instead, Hillary even referred to him as a "reformer" not that long ago but here's a great way to cut federal spending and put a dent in the debt and deficit at the same time -- STOP ALL WARS! Just sayin'. BTW has "just sayin'" become an annoying catch phrase yet? just sayin':)

Friday, August 12, 2011

Life's little miseries

(TMI Disclaimer: If you don't like scatological commentary please turn the page. If u post thanx 4 sharing why did you just read the whole thing?) You see the thing about Port-o-Sans -- there are two on the South County Trail, one at Great Hunger Memorial Park in Ardsley which I still refer to as Woodlands and the other at the Farragut Ave. parking lot at the Hastings-on-the-Hudson end. Now for me to use a Port-o-San for the other thing it has to be Absolutely Necessary, some kind of an apocalyptic emergency, Omega Man with the trots and so yesterday sparing the reader the more graphic details a critical decision was rendered that at the end of my walk I would bite the bullet. There exists a Murphy's Law of Port-o-Sans, it's a cosmic mechanism that doesn't vary and that is that somebody always took a dump before you got there. Doesn't matter if the tank guy just came by a half hour before to clean the place out and hose it down and in this case that same tank guy ain't coming 'til next Tuesday and yesterday was Thursday. At this point due to the condition of the facility ANOTHER critical decision was rendered to wait for the public library to open at 10:00, geez only about 40 minutes away so this is where your meditative powers and use of nice pleasant imagery like babbling brooks comes into heavy play. Now I've used enough public facilities in my lifetime to come to the conclusion that this nation ain't digesting its food right, it's a public health concern and just this morning I checked out the other Port-o-San at Farragut out of a kind of perverse curiosity and same deal. Someone shellshocked by Life, the same jogger working off a bad divorce? Ah what job stress hath wrought, what it's done to our once fine country and they can't pay this tank guy enough imo (Spanish guy, go figure). Basic potty training is the foundation of Civilization and we're obviously a country in decline. When my friend worked at Pathmark in dairy I'd meet him there every once in a while towards the end of his shift to go out and had to go once, nothing serious mind you so he showed me through the breakroom and on to the Men's Room. Let's just say all three stalls were a federal disaster area and I asked him wha'happened? and he said one of the workers wasn't feeling good. OK I get it, I understand but how'd the stuff get on the walls? I honestly don't know how the gays do it, God bless 'em. The rest stop at the train depot at White Plains, pretty gangster. Ever have a bird crap on your head? Is that supposed to bring good luck?

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Personality pools

You really do work with a garden-variety of people but I think the reason I've never fit into any of the cliques at work is I operate under a kind of inverse principle from everyone else: sometimes I'll dislike other people whom others like and conversely I'll like others who are disliked. Sets me at odds right off the bat. The majority of people I've worked with over the years seem OK but when I didn't like someone sometimes it was on a visceral, even existential level (Saty chalks this up to karmic crap in past lifetimes and it's an interesting theory). More likely of the ones I didn't like despite their popularity I saw them as somehow being phony and conniving or some other group of strong negatives. I judge character with other criteria besides popularity and it's like sometimes they know it, they can sense it and there's a vibe in the air and they know that you know you're on to them and whatever bullshit game they're playing. On the other hand back in the day we once had this district manager who was strongly and I mean strongly disliked and there was practically a consensus about him. Prick was one of the nicer terms used and yet I liked him and said to a co-worker once that you may disagree with him at times but what I like about him is he shows passion for his job, his position, takes it seriously and has a good knowledge of his district and what needs to be done. Most DM's I've encountered over the years come across as simply bland titleholders who are more interested in teeing off on a nice day than learning the ropes but this DM was different and had a kind of youthful enthusiasm for the job. Now my lady boss at the time when everyone learned he was being reassigned to our region was clearly perturbed, said he's a pain in the ass and other choice words and yet I felt like saying to her some of us feel about you the way you feel about him. The best workers I"ve worked with tend to fall into the ethnic categories of Latinos and Asians. I don't even care if the Latinos aren't full citizens as they say but they work their asses off and the phrase work like a Mexican came into widespread use for a reason. Asians are quiet and take orders without bitching and churn out the work product too and this goes back to their strict upbringings and the installation of values like appreciating being here in America, working and studying hard and it shows and they're moral too btw, don't go throwing other people under the bus. Getting back to the DM I think the reason why he grated so much is he just wanted people to do a little work is all and do the right thing and yet I had a manager once, an inveterate asshole who gave me a hard time but clearly won in the popularity sweepstakes. Tomorrow I have to say something about Port-o-Sans:)

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Bad teachers or just bad kids?

I was never that caught up in the whole education debate in this country, not that I don't care but in the conservative worldview if I understand it correctly and I think I do there are an awful lot of bad teachers in the public schools and so if we just got rid of teacher tenure everything would be hunky-dory. In fact this is one issue they really get their dander up about, endless columns to the point where I just cruise them and turn the page but dunno man, maybe the problem is with the Kids. In our discussion of utterly boring and meaningless jobs Saty had this to say: "Quite a lot of jobs could be made more interesting by the motivation and willingness of the person doing it to make it more interesting." Just substitute the word class for jobs and student instead of person and the same point applies to education. What's a teacher to do with a class full of asshole kids, fidgety brats who won't sit still and aren't willing to learn? I started out very early in the public school system but then my folks switched me over to private but out of all those years I don't really recall too many truly bad teachers. Maybe a few were too boring and dry for my tastes and could have been better but to hear conservatives tell the tale......Mayor Bloomberg's multimillion dollar Black and Latino Initiative in NYC has as a key component teaching the young'ens all about Sex, rubber instructions, things like that but if I may borrow from the soapster here it is not even the primary obligation of the State to educate your kid. It certainly isn't to teach them something Mom and Dad should be teaching them anyway and I say teach 'em a trade, how to make money, how to get a job. How is learning about Mike and Fred adopting a kid gonna pay the bills down the road? Now Mayor Bloomberg somehow got the law changed in the City so he could run for a third term and we get this stuff for his finale and pedestrian plazas where cars used to be and bike lanes nobody really uses and he even wants to have food grade inspections for New York's trademark fast food vendors because in his words if he's buying a hot dog he wants to know whether the guy washed his hands first. Maybe you want one of those giant salted pretzels and Moussa just took a dump. I just shut my mind off to it:)

Monday, August 08, 2011

Obama's flirtation and the downgrading of U.S. credit




Standard & Poor's has downgraded America's credit rating from AAA to AA+, first time in History that's happened which is actually surprising considering our history. Apparently S&P has a more dismal view of our long-term economic prospects than the other two major credit-rating agencies, Moody's and Fitch. Now 'tis true that S&P in its report called for enhanced revenues aka tax increases as Rachel Maddow happily points out but also threatened to downgrade U.S. credit if Congress didn't cut spending by at least $4 trillion. The $2 trillion cuts didn't impress the eggheads what can I say? Obama Administration says the math is fuzzy, whatever. Now the New York Times has editorialized that from now on there should be no raise or not raise the debt ceiling debates as there should be no debt ceiling period (Times editorials are beyond liberal and are really Bermuda Triangle stuff) and I really don't read Times editorials anymore but get wind of them when other conservatives complain about them which is often. S&P has threatened a second downgrade but the point is this, if your spouse or significant other constantly talks about cheating and goes about flirting but doesn't actually go through with the deed would you still trust them? Seems to me most presidents just go about quietly raising the debt ceiling not that I agree with this but Obama actually flirting with default here is what really led to the downgrade IMO, I mean can he be trusted with paying our bills in the future? It was a game of high-stakes poker and I don't think the folks over at S&P much care for poker-playing with our national debt and deficit:)

Friday, August 05, 2011

Friends don't let friends blog stoned

Are drugs good for you? Time to put the issue to bed once and for all. To all the pro-drug types out there I propose a simple experiment: post some type of acidblog, a potpost, a meth musing, a coke commentary, whatever and the rest of us will post our usual stuff and both groups will be judged on creativity, artistic edge, deeper knowledge of the issues and Life in general, the rare and unusual insight, that sort of thing. I mean drugs are supposed to enhance these things right? so hop to it. The drugged posts should be positively exploding with all of the above and then some, Starbursts for the mind and the straight blogs will be positively dull and uninspired by comparison. OK so when you're done gimme the keys to your computer.

Thursday, August 04, 2011

Wasted time

A co-worker and I were having this discussion last night. Take the most boring, unsatisfying and mundane job you can think of, fill in blank but we can start with armpit sniffer if you like and I said in a way it's tragic, those are lost hours of your life you can never get back to read a book, to watch a documentary on cheetahs, to go for a walk, to cultivate a friendship or any of a hundred other activities that give enjoyment and meaning to you personally. He thought for a moment and considered but then said "but you're getting paid for it." A strong logical point and I had to think for a minute. His is a common attitude, perhaps the prevailing one but dunno I said, I disagree. Since work is such a large part of our lives, such a huge chunk of Time really it should at least be satisfying and fulfilling on some level, have some overall Meaning. Now we all feel being stuck in a traffic jam is a perfect waste of time but let's say we got paid a little for it to take the edge off, to compensate us for the pain of our boredom and delay would it still be wasted time? My friend would obviously say no but I say yes it would still be since a traffic jam is not even remotely related to the meaning and purpose of Life. In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged the motive power of Life is simply the joy of existence, that's good enough for me and by this standard being in a coma for ten years even if you're lucky enough to come out of it accounts for Time Lost and the Good Lord doesn't give those back unless there's some kind of holdover system into your next life. You'll often hear conservatives say that prisoners these days have the life. This is rather asinine and I have to say something about this. The prisoner's real sentence here is wasted time and I don't care if there's a gym involved and three square meals a day and cable tv, it's still prison. I would rather be at home at night watching that good cheetah documentary or reading a stimulating book or doing a challenging crossword puzzle and this is the short list because I'm somehow broadening my horizons, massaging my imagination, increasing my knowledge if only by increments whereas the totally nonfulfilling job takes important time away from doing this and far more besides and even taking into account the monetary consideration involved it's a total waste of my time although apparently not of my friend's and that's cool, to each his own as they say. If I could call this blog anything it's a kind of ongoing Manifesto of Life. They say you learn something new everyday. By my reckoning if you live to be 5oo you'll be a Genius:)

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Joe Biden and the Tea Party Terrorists

Originally this blog was taking shape as all the various ways critics, usually liberal ones invalidate those with whom they disagee by the use of the political pejorative "extremist." SHAW does this and neocon David Brooks of the New York Times does it as well and it's an argument from intimidation, a deliberate polemical device to curb free-flowing and robust intellectual, philosophical and political debate and its purpose is to circumscribe already shrinking respectable parameters of civic discourse and yes it's an attempt at thought control although I can't obviously impugn motives to everyone here. On my walk today the way this was shaping up in my mind though is why we worship moderation so much (seems kinda boring and bland to have this as your overall guiding life philosophy), why it's now considered the supreme political virtue and basically I want to know do we worship moderation in and of itself as a goal and an end or is it simply a technique, an important at times and pragmatic step towards the Larger Goals (the Reagan approach)? If it's the former what's the point? if it's the latter I can understand and there may be times that it makes eminent practical sense although I can imagine my idealist colleague soapie disagreeing. Used to be if the word extremist was bandied about everyone pretty much knew who everyone was talking about, those who oppose abortion and gay marriage for instance, narrow folks who were seen as being overly cramped on the social issues. NOW it means especially for liberals anyone whom the wielder of the term disagrees with. If you're for fiscal responsibility and government living within its means you're an extremist. If you're against higher taxes on the wealthy (and don't kid yourself on everyone else) as a way of dealing with the debt and deficit then you're an extremist and I can imagine the list expanding. It means whatever SHAW and Brooks and others want it to mean. For liberals and conservatives some things are just not for sale whereas moderates want to sell the whole house. Oh isn't Joe Biden charming btw, just had another brain fart:)

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

A kind of closet environmentalist

Yesterday I took my long customary walk from Woodlands Lake in Ardsley, Westchester County NY all the way up to Rte. 119 in Elmsford figuring maybe the beavers moved downstream after all these years. When we were kids my Dad took us to Warehouse Lane in Elmsford off 9A where UPS is and where the Saw Mill River meanders its way through on its eventual destination in the Hudson River and we observed the local beaver population busy at work building their lodges and dams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver). Now there's much more industry here, there's a Sam's Club where the drive-in theater used to be and Masters Department Store has been replaced by a huge multiplex showcasing the latest in Hollywood dreck. Warehouse Lane, home to a huge Coca-Cola plant, FedEx, Conway Freight, Nestle Foods (Poland Spring and Deer Park trucks parked outside), a tire and auto place and San-Mar Laboratories, the Elmsford Animal Shelter and other assorted places of business. Over down 9A a bit by where you get on 287 is a Romantic Depot, an overpriced porn hut. Browser packs, a clown fucking some fat woman or maybe that's Giggles. It kind of melds together in your mind after awhile in one big existential landfill but I mean at least strive for Art. Wendy's, KFC, Grainger's, Rosedale Nurseries more in Hawthorne where the Saw Mill is very picturesque here and quaint like something out of a jigsaw puzzle. If Rush lived here he'd probably think it's all good, a hustling and bustling area, good population and jobs galore but you'd think a beaver population would be special, a kind of nurtured and protected area. Do we have ANY sense of the environment anymore? Does that make me an environmental wacko? maybe in his book but I'm just someone who would like the Dads of today to be able to take their kids there and learn something about Nature, about this special rodent that had been so heavily and tragically decimated back in the day, to see something they don't teach in school anymore because they're too busy learning about the Gay Lifestyle instead. Been meaning to ask btw, Powerwalkers with their weird arm movements, what's that supposed to do for you?

Monday, August 01, 2011

I don't want to bore you with this stuff

The New Debt Deal for Dummies

Nearly $3 trillion in spending cuts. The debt limit would be raised in two stages, a $900 billion increase now and a $1.5 trillion increase next year. Obama has a temporary authority to hike the debt limit without Congressional approval. The plan calls for at least $2.7 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years and also takes place in two steps: $1.2 trillion in cuts now and at least another $1.5 trillion in cuts to be named by a special bipartisan committee by Thanksgiving. If the Congress doesn't act on the suggested spending cuts by 12/23 automatic triggers go into effect to the tune of $1.5 trillion and we're talking sacred cows like the Pentagon and Medicare here. Reforming entitlements like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are on the table as well as the tax code. My thoughts: reminds me of Astronomy which I was interested in as a kid. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year moving along at about the rate of 186,000 miles/sec. and this galaxy and that star are so many light-years away from Us and then you get into the whole area of black holes and event horizons and when you seriously begin to ponder the whole thing boggles the Mind and so these #'s from the Guv'ment are hard to wrap around so how does the average yokel know if they're good or they're bad? All I knows is keep raising the debt ceiling as it will be again in 2013 and you begin to escape the field of gravity (i.e. fiscal responsibility and good governance), actually we've been in Orbit for some time now. I'm not gonna be like the other erudite bloggers out there and pretend I understand this stuff. The whole thing imo is just an intergalactic clusterfuck:)

contributions to the culture



Hustler publisher Larry Flynt has offered Casey Anthony 500G on the barrelhead to pose nude plus 10% of all ensuing profits. Her lawyers of course have denied any negotiations have taken place. Apparently there be groups of men out there who want to see this stuff and said to Flynt go for it. Says Flynt: "so there may be some sick individuals...but that's what life's all about." Maybe she can make a sex tape with O.J.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

And on the aggressive atheism front

A group calling themselves American Atheists has filed a lawsuit trying to prevent the return of the steel beam cross that was found standing in the rubble of 9/11 to the new World Trade Center Memorial. They argue that the government is partially funding the project and the Cross is a religious symbol. The new memorial is set to open on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 (sans banos btw but that's a whole side issue). Mayor Bloomberg who always can be counted on to say the safe and nondisputable thing said on his weekly radio show on WOR that they have the right to sue. My take, by its very nature mourning is for so many people such an intensely spiritual and religious experience and this country has such strong religious underpinnings that goes all the way back to its Founding that only a bunch of Grinches with too much time on their hands and nothing better to do could do such a thing.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Rush, the Old Gray Lady and political masochism

As a very occasional reader of Shaw's blog "Progressive Eruptions" the topic of Rush Limbaugh comes up ALOT. To be fair she mentions Rush's name about as much as conservatives talk about New York Times editorials. I get the sense liberals form a core listenership of Rush's radio show just like conservatives probably form a core readership of the Old Gray Lady, in fact they probably subscribe. The New York Post has an occasional feature called TimesWatch but does the NYT have a counter-section called PostWatch? (I'm watching you buddy) I don't get caught up in this stuff. I say this, both should be allowed to peacefully co-exist. A nonopining newspaper, oh how I yearn! Rush is like the Mick Jagger of our national political discussion, I may occasionally tune in but there's newer stuff out there:)

Thursday, July 28, 2011

The gutting of the 9/11 Zadroga Act

First responders who may have gotten cancer on that fateful day are not covered under the $2.7 billion compensation fund. Federal doc John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says in a new study he can't seem to come up with a cancer/9-11 toxins in the air kind of link. Well that's one way to cut spending. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do in these financially apocalyptic times but makes you wonder why they wanna raise the debt ceiling and yet they won't cover these brave men and women. C'mon, not even a trickle of a trillion? By the time they finally get the bill right most of the ailing 9/11 heroes will be dead or maybe that's the whole point. Maybe this is one of the rationing aspects of Obamacare we're seeing but I wouldn't want to be accused of making another hate statement.

Pro-Choice = Pro-Abortion

Is this another Hate Statement? Why is it when you get close to the Truth of the Matter you're accused of making a hate statement? So nobody in the abortion clinic, not the doctor or the woman or the boyfriend or any member of the nursing staff or a counselor or the janitor is really for what is taking place? Everybody is morally sleepwalking through the entire procedure? It's a surreal conclusion.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Don't bother hiring the jobless

In the interest of political fairness this has to be talked about although I don't know how much weight to give it as a factor in our current unemployment rate of 9.2%. I've been reading of late and hearing in the news that many companies make a very conscious decision to not hire the unemployed. There is truth to this as I remember many many years ago being out of work for 3 or 5 months, I don't remember the gap exactly and at the very outset of my job interview for an industrial supply company the interviewer practically zeroed in on solely that it seemed and it rather offended me and I didn't get the job even though I was obviously looking for work. The demand that your Life be perfect, well guess what in most cases it's not. In my case I think it was simply the gaps to be embellished later (freelance photography anyone?) as in my youthful idealism once the bs on a job became too much to bear I simply moved on. Don't do that anymore in order to stabilize my life which doesn't seem healthy either 'cause then you just put up with crap on a daily basis. I would imagine even in some cases there could be depressive issues in a person's life and that could explain some gaps but then you have the mental stigma thing ("hey Clifford's nuts")......Never liked it that on practically all job applications these days after each job you list and describe there is a box exclusively reserved for Reason for Leaving. Well I would hazard a guess that in many cases the person leaves for reasons of being pissed off (fill in your own reason(s) here) and imo it's none of their G-d business. They're trying to build some kind of psychological profile on you and if you're honest you'll probably remain jobless ("geez I see here he's some kind of a malcontent, didn't like some of his co-workers") and the way things are going in the news these days if you don't come across as the overly happy and cheesy type they might figure someday you might shoot up the place, just on the off-chance ya know? Now your beefs may be perfectly legitimate but that's not the point. Bottom line is there is a definite and strong form of corporate judgementalism at work here, the perfection-mongers (let's go over their lives with a fine toothcomb shall we). Bottom line is we won't hire you, take a chance. Better that you live in a cardboard box underneath the overpass. BTW here's a few bucks for booze, cigars and porn:)