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:)