Filling in the Corners

Loving This Week with Larry Miller

2011-11-29T18:23:00.004-06:00

I love the Christopher Guest movies - Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration. So much so that I've bought the DVDs of each of them and watched the "movie with commentary" part of each of these films. I bring that up to say this: on one of them, I forget which, Christopher says that no one can wear short sleeves like Larry Miller. I have no idea why I know what that means but I do and it's so totally true.

Anyway...

Larry Miller can play an asshole like no one else. But, he is the farthest thing from an asshole of any person I know of. The first inkling of this I had was when I listened to his interview on Marc Maron's WTF. Now, I'm a subscriber of his podcast, This Week with Larry Miller and I love listening to it. I hope to someday find myself able to embrace Larry's philosophy of "game's over and you've won."

The latest dumb thing my mind is doing to me

2011-08-11T02:54:00.004-05:00

Four or five days ago I had one of those dreams that shocked me straight awake, screaming and scrambling out of bed. I was convinced that some sort of flesh eating, scaly skinned eels were eating my feet. In the dream, they had already swallowed me up to my ankles, making it impossible to move.

So, a bad dream, right? Should be no big deal.

But it is. I can't sleep unless I'm under my sheets and blanket. Now, after that dream, I remember those eels in the moment just before getting to sleep and wake straight back up. I can't get to sleep on top of the covers and I can't stay asleep under the covers.

In short, I'm very, very, very tired.

The Pacific - To the point movie review

2011-07-27T10:59:00.004-05:00

Young men of mostly European descent shoot at young men of mostly Asian descent on Pacific islands.*

2 out of 5 palm fronds

*To be fair, I didn't finish this miniseries. It is billed as a companion piece to Band of Brothers and in production value it certainly lives up to the standard set by that great series. However, it is so lacking in story telling and character development that by the end of the second episode I had no idea who was who or what was going on. Protracted, confusing, night-time battle scenes dominate the series which left me confused and frustrated.

Is it a coincidence that Eric Cantor and Eric Cartman sound so much alike?

2011-06-24T05:29:00.003-05:00

Consider Cantor's negotiation technique: Why Eric Cantor Bailed

and

Cartman's technique:

Is it just me or is Cartman just Cantor all growed up?

Words to live by... (I'm in a mood)

2011-06-09T22:50:00.001-05:00

The Lord loves a working man.
Don't trust whitey.
See a doctor and get rid of it.

US Kills Osama Bin Laden

2011-05-02T13:07:00.006-05:00

John Donne says any death diminishes us all; I say jubilation over death diminishes us all the more.

Meditation XVII, John Donne

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

Le Dork d'Arthur

2011-04-15T20:55:00.003-05:00

I've never cared for the Arthur character. I mean that exactly. I've never found him at all interesting. I don't hate him and I don't love him. He is presented as a pawn of destiny and, somehow, everyone is supposed to respect him for that. But, he's just a pawn.

The characters around Arthur are far more interesting, right? Merlin, the scheming chess master trying to fit Arthur in exactly the right spot, Arthur's sister -- whose name escapes me just now -- with her vicious response to a shitty homelife, his cheating wife, his cheating knight and all the others around him who partook in adventure while he sat serenely as the holy head of state; all of them are far more interesting than the man who seemed to allow himself to be mindlessly buffeted back and forth by fate right up until the end of his life.

I've only recently come to realize that this is why I've always been bored with Arthur. I never really gave it much thought but, there it is.

The Hurt Locker - To the point movie review

2011-04-13T19:56:00.004-05:00

Boys with toys kill each other and blow shit up in Iraq.
2/5 bootleg DVDs

Saving Grace - To the point movie review

2011-03-28T09:41:00.005-05:00

Craig Ferguson grows marijuana in his boss's solarium.
4/5 seedlings

Dean Spanley - To the point movie review

2011-03-28T09:24:00.001-05:00

When he was a boy, Peter O'Toole's dog died. Sam Neill remembers it when he drinks an Eastern European dessert wine.
5/5 glasses of tokaji

Splitting Heirs - To the point movie review

2011-03-27T09:19:00.002-05:00

Eric Idle sleeps with Catherine Zeta Jones and tries to kill Rick Moranis. And who among us hasn't wanted at least one of these things?
3/5 brandy flasks

Tell-Tale - To the point movie review

2011-03-26T09:52:00.002-05:00

A heart transplant recipient kills the people responsible.
4/5 black market livers

Cosi - To the point movie review

2011-03-26T09:13:00.000-05:00

After burning down a theater, a group of Australian mental patients produce an opera.
3/5 matches

Oh, Harry!

2011-02-21T13:18:00.000-06:00

Why I'm more likely than my cat to win the Nobel Peace Prize

2011-02-08T04:21:00.004-06:00

I am capable of both written and verbal communication.

I rarely throw-up on the floor, especially in front of others.

I'm often fully dressed, especially in public.

I'm a better cook.

Licking my privates has never been part of my cleaning ritual.

I usually use a toilet for my personal needs instead of a box of sand.

Not to be a foot-counting speciest but, I am bipedal giving me more in common with both the committee and past recipients.

I don't jump on the couch when I'm told not to.

I have never bitten anyone aggressively or defensively, thus contributing to world peace.

I can wear the medal around my neck without letting it drag on the floor.

I have a longer life expectancy than him which gives me more opportunities to win the prize.

Thumbs.

I rarely sniff at others' dinner plates, especially when they're looking.

I can tie my own tie.

I'm not afraid of vacuum cleaners.

I am aware of the Nobel Peace Prize.

I can produce more references, both personal and professional.

I rarely beg when someone opens a can of tuna.

The Hangover - To the point movie review

2011-01-14T12:41:00.003-06:00

Before getting married, a man survives over 30 hours of exposure in the Nevada desert. Comedy.
4/5 blue pills

It Gets Better

2011-01-14T12:37:00.001-06:00

Part of the It Gets Better project.

To the right-wingers defending Loughner's second amendment rights

2011-01-13T19:03:00.005-06:00

The memo that's being passed around reads:

To everyone who is calling for stricter gun laws in light of the tragedy in Tucson, may I offer this little tidbit: If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars drive drunk, and spoons make people fat. Remember: Hold the person accountable for their actions, not the means they chose to utilize!

Listen, stupid, nobody is calling for the pardon of Jared Loughner. He horribly broke the law and should be brought to justice. But, we are concerned about the liberal gun laws that made it possible for this nut-job to get his hands on such a weapon. Think about it; by now we are all familiar with the disturbed rantings and action of this 'tard. Clearly, he wasn't a person that should have possessed a weapon and the signs were there.

We on the left don't want to prohibit you on the right to enjoy your gun fetishes. We just want a little more control to be exercised over the crazy dip-shits like Loughner.

Too much to ask? I don't think so.

Stay - To the point movie review

2011-01-06T15:51:00.003-06:00

A single car accident on a bridge in New York city kills the driver and three passengers. Cool, trancy music.
4/5 paint brushes

Stone of Destiny - To the point moview review

2011-01-02T22:38:00.000-06:00

Scottish college kids steal an ancient stone from Westminster Abbey, take it to Scotland then give it to the police.
4/5 haggises

Julie & Julia - To the point movie review

2011-01-01T21:34:00.000-06:00

Meryl Streep plays Julia Child. Amy Adams invents blogging.
3/5 wooden spoons

Tideland - To the point movie review

2010-12-31T20:28:00.000-06:00

Jeff Bridges dies and gets stuffed. A train blows up.
4/5 doll heads

Alice in Wonderland - To the point movie review

2010-12-30T19:26:00.000-06:00

Johnny Depp wears an orange wig. Tim Burton abuses CGI.
3/5 tea parties

Star Wars IV A New Hope - To the point movie review

2010-12-29T18:22:00.000-06:00

Luke Skywalker whines about doing his chores then blows up a space station, killing thousands of innocent civil employees. Alec Guinness evaporates.
4/5 light sabers

The Brave One - To the point movie review

2010-12-28T17:11:00.000-06:00

Jodie Foster plays Charles Bronson.
4/5 bullets

Fired! - To the point movie review

2010-12-27T23:57:00.000-06:00

A self absorbed actress tells unemployed people about that one time when Wood Allen fired her.
2/5 pink slips

After.Life - To the point movie review

2010-12-27T19:11:00.004-06:00

An oft naked Christina Ricci dies in a car crash. Then, mortician Liam Neeson apparently kills her. The I'm-a-Mac guy is in it, too.
4/5 doses of hydronium bromide

The Living Wake - To the point movie review

2010-12-27T16:03:00.006-06:00

A "dapper dan" sort of hobo with no social awareness plans his own wake. Eddie Pepitone throws lunch meat at him.
3/5 slices of ham

Date Night - To the point movie review

2010-12-27T14:56:00.004-06:00

Tina Fey and Steve Carell are mistaken for criminals. Zany antics ensue.
4/5 pratfalls

Rough Magic - To the point movie review

2010-12-27T13:42:00.004-06:00

The plastic actress Bridget Fonda does some card tricks then turns Paul Rodriguez into a sausage.
3/5 talking dogs

Run, Fat Boy, Run - To the point movie review

2010-12-27T13:16:00.003-06:00

Simon Pegg gets in shape and runs a marathon.
4/5 blisters

The Road - To the point movie review

2010-12-27T12:34:00.007-06:00

Viggo Mortensen protects a kid for a while then dies.
2/5 dead trees

When I open my brewery: Christmas beer edition

2010-12-18T04:41:00.005-06:00

This is something I spend a lot of time speculating. Not that I have any serious plans, I just like to dream.

So, here's my latest idea: One year my Christmas beers will be named for Santa's reindeer line up. The deer come in pairs - Dasher + Dancer, Donner + Blitzen, Comet + Cupid, and so on - except for Rudolph. My beers will be based on this idea of pairs so, for instance, the Donner beer would be an old ale and the Blizten beer would be the same beer except also aged on oak. Get it? Each pair will be a classic style for the first name and some enhanced version of that same style for the second name.

Of course this leaves Rudolph standing alone. That beer would be the kinda typical over-the-top holiday beer with spices and fruit and such.

Sounds good, right?

'tis the season

2010-12-17T17:17:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas all you rich and privileged out there!

And fuck you, you working class folk who'll be paying for this for decades to come. You deserve to be bent over the table and raped in the ass because you didn't have what it takes to become absurdly wealthy and corrupt.

...and to all a good night...

Sick of being polite

2010-12-16T09:50:00.004-06:00

One might not realize it in reading some of the older posts on this blog but, I am really a diminishing guy when it comes to discussing politics. Typically the extent of my conversation is to only ask for clarification from someone who has just spouted something political out of their mouth. Or, more commonly, to say nothing at all. My thinking has been that nothing I will say will convince those who disagree with me of my views and there's no point in going 'round with someone of like mind. In both cases, I have to wonder what's the point?

Well, one reason to reply is sanity. Being liberal and progressive, I tend to look for a better way, a smarter way for my nation. Conservatives do what they've always done, look for any reason to cling to the past. Another aspect of the current batch of conservatives that we have in the US today is that they are willfully ignorant. In the face of contradictory facts, they refuse to reconsider their conclusions.

Take the birthers. For years these delusional people have clung to the idea that Obama is an illegitimate president because he was not born in the US. Initially, this was a legitimate question to pursue. Obama makes not secret of the fact that his father was Kenyan and he spent some of his schoolboy years overseas. So, a check into the state's records to see if he was, in fact, born in the US was something worth looking into. Unfortunately - or fortunately if you are someone who wants to willfully cling to the appearance of truth that a myth can produce - the state of Hawaii destroyed their paper birth certificates some years back. The government went to an entirely electronic method of keeping those records. So, the "original" birth certificate of Barack Obama isn't available. Nevermind that legal proof exists in the form of those electronic state's records. Also, nevermind that the state repeatedly and opening provided those records as part of the normal course of business to anyone that requested it. That is it did until the requests started coming so fast and frequently that the office couldn't keep up, let alone take care of any other business. So, in the face of undeniable evidence, these birthers like flat-earth believers of moon-landing conspiracy theorists, cling to the idea that Obama is an illegitimate president.

So what, right? There are crazies at the fringe of every party or movement, isn't there? Yes, there is but, what sets apart today's conservative movement is that the birther belief, like a stalwart religion, infects right to the core. Where other fringe beliefs stay on the fringes, the conservative party embraces them. Members of the movement, from nationally syndicated TV and radio personalities to elected officials at every level from local mayors to members of both houses, openly and often bring up the question of the president's legitimacy based on the birther myth. In spite of the fact that contrary evidence exists and they have undoubtedly been presented with it, they willfully cling to this ignorance.

Bringing up the idea that the problems that plague us exist in both parties presents another aspect of the current political debate that drives me up the wall. The two party system that has grown up in the US gives us the idea, perhaps even compels us to search for a sense of balance. Both parties are corrupt. Voting is a choice of the lesser of two evils. There is no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. This false equivalence creates an easy excuse for lazy political awareness. If there is no real difference between the parties, would possible reason would one have to be engaged in the debate.

I will admit that the two parties begin with very similar cores. The two modern political parties in the US are corporatist and are competing for power. This is the money in elections issue. Politicians on both sides have to kiss corporate ass in order to get reelected. But, beyond that horrible truth, the parties are very different. Republican politicians, once they reach a point of power do nothing to help the collective lives of their constituents. Civil rights and the quality of life simply don't come up on their radar screens. They have grand, libertarian-light theories about creating a laissez-faire atmosphere for big business that will eventually create jobs.

This creates a party where it is okay, even comfortable to be racist, homophobic. It creates an atmosphere that allows hate. It doesn't matter if one group or another suffers because this doesn't affect the lives of the corporations. And, creating divisions based on hate and differences is a great way to drive votes during elections. If I can scare you about the horde of Mexicans coming to take our jobs and marry our daughters, then you will vote for me when I promise to protect you from that horde.

So, what does all of this have to do with my sanity? I can't not speak up any more. It has nothing to do with saving the nation or anything grand like that. I hope for these things but, they are really out of my control. It is about the individuals in my life who choose this willful ignorance and align themselves with an organization that demonstrably has the opposite of their best wishes at heart.

I must have an outlet. I can no longer keep quiet in the interest of politeness.

I realize that this is kind of lame to have gone on so in defense of bickering politics online but, it is a big deal to me. Yesterday, after getting three separate entries in the Top News feed on my facebook page that were clear examples of this willful igornace, I kind of lost my mind. I deleted my freindships with the posters, one of whom is one of my oldest real-life friends. Then I thought to myself, fuck this, I'm not going to put up with this shit anymore. Then I posted this:

Feeling a little pissy tonight. Borrowed from my fb friend and colleague Danilo: The Republican Party and their Tea Party pals are racist, homophobic hatemongers. Anyone who remotely disagrees with this basic statement of fact should immediately unfriend me.

Danilo posted this on his page a couple of months ago and I remember admiring him and wishing that I had his courage. I wholeheartedly agree with this, as harsh as it might sound. But, I was intimidated to post it, or even a watered down version of it on my wall, for fear of offending.

Disagree? Try this. Name one piece of legislation introduced by a Republican since 2000 that specifically, not theoretically, improved the lives of individual Americans. Or, name one piece of legislation that came out of the right that sought to protect the civil rights of any group. This time frame gives you the period of greatest Republican power in recent memory. During this period Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, the White House and even the Supreme Court so if they were really interested in doing anything these things, this is when they would have done it.

(Here's a related exercise that might strike closer to home for conservatives. What's your pet issue? What's that one thing that, above everything else, keeps you in or at least aligned with the Republican party? Is it abortion? Is it gun rights? Is it fiscal conservatism? Okay, then, name one piece of legislation presented by the party during that time that sought to move things in a direction you'd like to see them go on that issue. You can't. And this was the period during which your party had the greatest power. Still believe that they have your interests at heart?)

I'm done with not trying to offend. Why should conservatives get to shout their made-up facts from the mountain tops and I don't. I will begin, now, calling lies lies. I don't really believe that I can make any real change by having a few arguments. But, at least I won't have to swallow all that horse-shit anymore.

Sometimes...

2010-07-21T18:46:00.001-05:00

Sometimes the support that I receive from my friends is overwhelming. Thanks to everyone who wishes me well. (And fuck all of you all that don't!)

The Best Book Ever

2010-04-24T03:56:00.001-05:00

Because it just wouldn't be fair otherwise...

2010-04-18T16:58:00.001-05:00

Proach (me): http://desstories.blogspot.com
RavenCorinnCarluk:http://ravencorinncarluk.blogspot.com
AuburnAssassin: http://clairegillian.wordpress.com
DavidZahir: http://zahirblue.blogspot.com/
xcomplex: http://arielemerald.blogspot.com/
Frodo: http://annvevera.blogspot.com/
FreshHell: http://freshhell.wordpress.com
Aimeelaine: http://www.aimeelaine.com/writing/blog/
Anarchicq: http://www.anarchicq.com/
*RomanceWriter*:http://staceyespino.blogspot.com
Forbidden Snowflake: http://www.alleslinks.com/
razibahmed: http://www.southasiablog.com/
CScottMorris: http://cscottmorrisbooks.com/
Aheila: http://thewriteaholicblog.wordpress.com/
LadyMage: http://www.katherinegilraine.com
leah Raeder: http://words.leahraeder.com/

This is it.

2010-03-10T07:48:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my second contribution to the Absolute Writes monthly blog chain. Once you're finished with my entry, please check out the links on either side of me - *RomanceWriter* and laffarsmith.

This month's topic is growing up. My first impulse is to make the forcedly lighthearted declaration that I will never grow up. I'm just to wacky, just having to much fun! Of course, that's not really true. Anyone trying to sell that is already grown up and trying desperately to cling to some notion of childishness. Someone who will never grow up wouldn't have considered the topic.

I am grown up, aren't I? So are most of us. And I think that the most surprising thing about it is that there's not more to it. This is it. I expected to be given a key or realized some truth at some point. I expected a bright line to appear somewhere in life that, in the crossing, would have made me a grown up. I mean, after the life initiation of puberty, we deserve something like that don't we?

Nothing happens. And it doesn't happen so gradually that you don't even notice it not happening. None of the traditional signposts of life are what you expect. You graduate high school but the next day your mom is still telling you to clean your room. You turn eighteen and now have the ability to vote with the other adults. Statistically, you probably won't. If you do, nothing changes when you turn in your ballot. You turn twenty-one and nothing much happens except some friends might take you out drinking. You graduate college but you're still just a kid looking for a job.

At some point, years later - almost always a moment that's only remarkable for its insignificance - you look around and realize that you are grown up. When that moment arrived for me, I was first a little amused then just pissed off. How could this be it? Grown ups know things. They know how to do stuff and how to get stuff done. They have opinions that should be respected. They run companies, they are people's bosses, they serve in public office.

But I shouldn't be one of them. I didn't know any more than I used to. My opinions weren't worth any more than before. I didn't have any employees. I never even got a freaking key.

The Whole Chain:
aimeelaine - www.aimeelaine.com/writing/blog
AuburnAssassin - http://clairegillian.wordpress.com/
Collectonian - http://collectonian.livejournal.com/
DavidZahir - http://zahirblue.blogspot.com/
FreshHell - http://freshhell.wordpress.com/
Simran - http://theglutenfreefoodblog.blogspot.com/
Proach - http://everythinghistorical.wordpress.com/
*RomanceWriter* - http://www.staceyespino.blogspot.com/
Breddings - http://breddings.blogspot.com/
laffarsmith - http://www.writersroundabout.com/

Everthing is Okay

2010-03-01T16:32:00.000-06:00

I've Gotta Write About What?

2010-02-16T11:43:00.011-06:00

This is my first month to participate in the blog chain at Absolute Write. Check out I do it all for love and Writing about Love to keep the chain going. I'm glad to be a part of it; should be a healthy exercise. But did they have to choose love as the topic? For fuck's sake!

I've been furiously scribbling my thoughts and feelings since elementary school. My English teachers loved me - although they were continually confused by my love of writing and my casual relationship with grammar - and my gym teachers hated me. The feeling was usually mutual.

I'm a stereotypical Midwesterner. My protestant, tea totaling parents raised me to believe that we should think about our feelings as little as possible and to talk about them never. I've held true to this system as much as possible. It really helps me avoid that oogie feeling.

And, in a lot of ways, I'm a stereotypical dude. I mean, when it came down to finally picking a genre in which to write I wound up in nonfiction writing about beer. I wouldn't say that I chose it - I actually kind of fell backwards into it - but I've been incredibly happy doing it and wouldn't trade places with anyone, except maybe a beer writer who makes more money that I do.

So, my point is, am I not that last person in the world to write about love?

Clearly. We're already six paragraphs in and I still haven't even come close to the topic at hand.

I don't write about love. I tried it a few times in short stories and briefly in the novel that is languishing on my hard drive. And I wrote plenty about it back in my teenage years before I knew what the hell I was talking about. It's difficult to write about. The feelings are simultaneously so common and so extraordinary that to capture them one is left in that horrible place between silly cliché and absurd metaphor.

I am in love. I met my wife and partner in college and we've been very happy together since. This is our sixteenth year together although we have only been married a little over five years.

This is how all that happened. Celeste - we'll call her that since it's her name - was fed up with her employer constantly raising her health insurance costs. So, she dropped it. She had told me that morning that she would do it if her cost went up x$. When it was announced that it would, she emailed me with the news.

I went to my HR person and asked if I could put Celeste on my insurance. Even though everyone at work knew and liked Celeste -- she's the likable one of the two of us -- the answer was no. Corporate didn't recognize our arrangement. So, I replied to Celeste's email with, "well, I guess we'll have to get married."

I called the marriage license people for our county. $55 and three days later, we were married on our lunch break. Her adult son and my parents attended the 5 minute ceremony at the court house and joined us for Chinese buffet before we had to get back to work.

Celeste loves this story. She loves to tell it. She loves everything about it: the emailed proposal, the lunch break wedding, the Chinese buffet honeymoon. Can you think of a more perfect woman for a dude who writes about beer for a living and gets that oogie feeling whenever emotions are brought up?

So, I can't write about love. But, I sure know it when I've got it.

Other Lovely February Bloggers
Aimeelaine - www.aimeelaine.com/writing/blog
Charlotte49ers - http://www.amandaplavich.com
AuburnAssassin - http://clairegillian.wordpress.com/
Breddings - http://boozingear.com/blog
*RomanceWriter* - http://staceyespino.blogspot.com/
Claire Crossdale - http://theromanticqueryletter.blogpost.com
Collectonian - http://collectonian.livejournal.com
FreshHell - http://freshhell.wordpress.com
David Zahir - http://zahirblue.blogspot.com/
Harri3tspy - http://spynotes.wordpress.com
Sneaky Devil - http://sneaks-myfantasylife.blogspot.com/
Frodo - http://annvevera.blogspot.com/
Upsidedowngrl - http://noellenolansblog.blogspot.com/

Healthcare Lost

2009-08-16T15:35:00.001-05:00

My message to the White House regarding this:

I read in today's news that you are going to drop the public option for health care. For shame. Every one of you in the Obama Administration, especially the President himself, should feel a deep sense of shame, failure and defeat on this one. You had the support - the overwhelming support - of the American public and you squandered it for some loud-mouthed, right-wing operatives and dupes. Shame on you. It looks like we're going to have to wait another 15+ years for a sane healthcare policy in this nation. Shame, shame, shame.

Fox News Wastes No Time in Shitting on Captured US Soldier

2009-07-20T13:06:00.005-05:00

Where's FN's support for the troops now? See what frequent contributor Fox news military analyst, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, has to say about Private First Class Bowe R. Bergdahl.

Brian Bakst is a Tool

2009-07-01T06:16:00.004-05:00

I don't know anything about Brian Bakst. I've never taken note of his name before today. But as soon as I read the first paragraph of today's article by Bakst about Al Franken's senate seat I knew I was in the presence of the work of a right-wing tool. Here's how Bakst starts his article:

Al Franken refused his rival's calls for an election night concession last November, choosing instead to begin vote counting and courtroom haggling that stretched almost eight months and ultimately landed him a seat in the U.S. Senate.

This is completely false, something the tool du jour proves in his own article. But he waits a leisurely ten paragraphs to make the correction and admit that the recount was triggered by Minnesota state law and every subsequent lawsuit was filed by Colemen. He was sure to get the lie in at the top where it would show up in the headline summaries.

Why does it matter? Because it perpetuates the perception that Fox, O'Reilly and hacks like Bakst love to put out there that Democrats are sneaky, litigious liars who can only win elections by fraud and deceit. They cannot fairly and accurately report the facts that, after months of fighting Coleman's relentless legal actions, Franken will finally be placed in the Senate seat that he won fair and square. That's how the opening of this article should have read.

But Bakst had to put his spin on it. Way to go, tool.

Mom! The Senator Keeps Looking at Me! Make Him Stop!

2009-03-11T10:21:00.003-05:00

Ah, I'm just bursting with pride over my state Senator, Jason Crowell, this morning. He is certainly keeping his fellow Senators in line which, most certainly, should be a top priority.

According to STLToday.com, he has been insisting that another Senator not look at him during debates. The way that this works out is that Senator David Pearce, who sits in front of our hero, tends to turn toward Crowell when addressing his attacks.

Senate rules require that Senators address their comments to the chair and not fellow Senators.

Apparently Crowell is confused by the English language and insists that one should always face the party being addressed. This way he won't have to be bothered with figuring out to whom the speaker in talking. It seems that it's not enough for Crowell that Senators address the chair, they must also face it while doing so. I wonder if when he calls people on the phone Crowell figures out where they are and physically turns in their direction while insisting that they do the same.

Anyway, it's a proud day for Cape Girardeau residents. Crowell is doin' us proud!

Small and Petty to the Last

2009-01-20T11:40:00.002-06:00

Just finished watching Barack Hussein Obama's inaugaration and I couldn't help but notice one small detail. After his address everyone seated around and behind him stood and applauded. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents graciously acknowledged the new president and respected his words.

Except for one.

While the crowd around him smiled and applauded George W. Bush remained motionless and grim-faced only responding when the president approached him personally. In his first act as ex-president Bush clearly demonstrated what a small and petty man he is.

Your time is over Mr. Former President. Go back to your ranch or your whites-only neighborhood and shut up. If there is any justice in the world we, the American people, will be along later to collect you with a warrant.

Wild Bill

2009-01-15T15:09:00.002-06:00

Just watched Wild Bill starring Jeff Bridges, Ellen Barkin, David Arkequette and others.

This was a pretty good movie. I tend to like films that turn genre's on their head and there's hardly a more entrenched American film genre than the western. So from that perspective this movie is enjoyable. The hero dies (no spoiler here as the film opens on his funeral) and the least macho character kills him.

But on the other hand the movie worked too hard to be independent. The story of the last few days of WBH were told with an insufferable number of flashbacks. And they were filmed in this really annoying black and white. Not normal black and white which is actually a lot of greys with some really interesting lighting; no this was black and white. The memory shots were stark and washed out and usually at extreme angles so you lost the story as you cocked your head trying to see the characters.

Nevertheless, Jeff Bridges carried out a perfectly lovely performance that manages to seep through the overly arty direction. The supporting cast did their job but no one was notable. Arquette might have been at the time, playing a simp so perfectly, but since we've learned by now that that's just his character then it isn't all than interesting.

So, see this movie if you like JB or if you soak everything remotely associate with the western genre. Otherwise, don't bother.

My Email to Senator Claire McCaskill

2008-10-14T13:40:00.001-05:00

This blog appears to be just a recounting of the emails I send to Washington. Here's my latest:

Hello,

First I want to say thanks for your early support of Barack Obama. Second I want to say that it's good to have at least one Democratic representative in Washington. Things can feel a little cold for the few lone lefties here in Cape Girardeau and with Emerson and Bond as my other elected leaders I often feel like my interests are not being represented.

But that's not why I'm contacting you.

I don't know the rules that dictate this sort of thing but I would very much like to see Harry Reid removed as the Senate Majority leader. I understand that the Democrats are dealing with the thinnest of majorities but he has squandered even that by bowing to the Republicans at every threat of a filibuster. The idea that we need a "filibuster proof majority" in order to get anything done is just ridiculous.

When the Republicans were in power the merest hint of a Democratic filibuster led to their threat of the "nuclear option" of changing the rules to disallow any filibusters. Reid could learn something from their tactics.

I'm certainly not suggesting that we adopt their barbaric behavior. But imagine the political theater if Reid had actually made them filibuster every time they threatened to do so. Instead of seeing the Democratic congress as useless and ineffective as many Americans seem to the Republicans' obstructionism would be clear to all by now.

For this reason and others I and many other interested liberals are supremely disappointed with Reid's leadership. I request that you and the other Democrats in the Senate replace him as leader as soon as possible.

I have the feeling that anyone of Senate Democrats would do a much better job but Hillary Clinton seems like a particularly good choose. She is smart, knows the system and has the spine that Harry Reid seems to lack.

Thanks,
Bryce Eddings

John McCain Should be Ashamed

2008-10-05T14:36:00.004-05:00

From the AP: Analysis: Palin's words may backfire on McCain

Even though I know that it's tossing a teaspoon of water in the ocean I submitted this note at McCain's campaign website.

Dear Mr. McCain,

Sir, you should be ashamed of the campaign that is being run in your name. Through the years I have admired you and appreciated your outspoken positions on many issues even when I disagreed with them. But the campaign that is now being run in your name is disgraceful and you should feel personally ashamed.

This weekend your running mate claimed that Obama is "palling around with terrorists." The attack is baseless and not worthy of your heretofore honorable career as a public servant.

Regain a shred of honor and renounce this statement NOW! It's time to start regaining Americans' respect that you have lost thanks to your scurrilous campaign.

Best,
Bryce Eddings

Hillary's Reply

2008-06-01T02:59:00.003-05:00

Now, I didn't expect the big H herself to respond to my little rant but I hoped that perhaps at least some staffer would look at it and add it to the "drop out now" pile. But, no. Not even that happened. Instead I got a form autoresponse with "some suggestions for how you get involved in the national campaign today."

That's not likely!

My note to Hillary

2008-05-31T19:14:00.001-05:00

Not that she's going to listen but here's the note that I sent to Hillary today. Why?

It is absolutely disgraceful what you are doing to the Democratic party and our chance to defeat McCain this autumn. Stop fighting over Michigan and Florida and let us have a nominee! I have never been an adamant supporter of either you or Obama but the more that you fight this embarrassing and harmful battle the less I will be able to support you should you get the nomination

But worse, you are polarizing the party and hardening your supporters to the point that they are increasingly saying they will not support Obama if he gets the nomination.

PLEASE, accept the party's ruling today and let us have a nominee already! We must start fighting McCain NOW and the longer that you drag this in-party fighting out the harder it will be for ANY Democrat to win this autumn.

Please, Hilllary, Please! It's up to you!!! Stop the fighting!

With God on Our Side

2008-04-08T14:50:00.001-05:00

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

- Bob Dylan
Lifted from BobDylan.com

Sins of the Brother

2008-04-04T12:32:00.000-05:00

At a recent football game Tim Cahill scored a goal. As part of his post goal celebration he crossed his outstretched fists in an international pantomime for handcuffs. Later he apologized for it.

What?

Here’s the back story. His brother Sean is in a bit of trouble. He managed to land himself in jail with a six year sentence. Tim wanted to dedicate the goal to Sean and this is how he chose to do it. That should have been the end of that.

But no. The cop who investigated Sean’s crime isn’t content to have caught him and put him away. He doesn’t want any public acknowledgement of the fact that Tim has a jailed brother. It is “grossly irresponsible” and “seemingly endorses” Sean’s actions.

You already won, officer! Sean’s behind bars. How about you move on to your next case and stop calling the press as you try to coattail on the coincidentally public personality of your latest conquest?

This Is Not Spam

2008-03-14T09:01:00.001-05:00

I just had to request a human review of this blog because Google has determined that it has the characteristics of splog.

OK, so I haven't really maintained much of a coherent thread through my little blog's bumpy existence and I only post infrequently but spam? Really?

Let's review - all unique content, one measely little line of Adsense links apologeticly garnishing the top, a few pitiful links and that's about it. What's spammy about that? If this reads like I'm offended; I'm not. I'm just puzzled.

I'd Rather Beat Dairy Queen

2008-03-14T08:51:00.002-05:00

This is what I read on a passing car. The bumper sticker actually read, using the company's logo, "I'd rather be at Dairy Queen." But "be" and "at" were oddly squished together and even when I realized how it was meant to be read it still looked like "I'd rather beat Dairy Queen" and I have to admit that I really prefer that version. I mean, what the hell's up with soft-serve anyway?

Miller Staring Down the Catholics

2007-10-14T10:21:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted on this blog in a long time. I devote most of my blogging energy to http://beer.about.com and http://www.boozingear.com/blog since I'm paid to write there. As a result I keep an eye on beer related headlines and when I saw Miller, the Jesus-Mocking Beer I had to read it.

Now, you take a moment to read it because I don't much feel like summarizing it.

OK, got it?

Yes, actually, anything for a buck is exactly the point. Apparently some people with alternative lifestyles like to drink beer - even if it is flavorless piss-water - so why shouldn't Miller be allowed to market to them? The author implies that the idea of anything for a buck somehow makes Miller morally reprehensible. But when corporations ship jobs overseas, rape the middle class, sell poisoned food, use virtual slave labor in third world countries, and basically behave like sociopath leaches on society this same excuse that they much first be concerned with the bottom line is embraced by the right wing.

I'm lumping Mr. Bozell III in with them not because I have any evidence that he espouses their views but because, as he states within this piece, he sits on that Advisory Board of the Catholic League and that's enough for me to lump all of those narrow-minded hate merchants together.

And one more thing, Mr. the third, should stop adding the Roman numerals to his name. It's just stupid.

Miller has every right to advertise to whomever the hell it wants. You go ahead with your little boycott but remember this. It was the folks on your side of the fence that have spent the last 150 creating an environment the allows and encourages corporations to run roughshod over the land and its people. You shouldn't act so surprised when these creations of yours don't embrace your narrow interpretation of values.

Uncle, or Embracing the Obvious

2007-01-14T16:44:00.000-06:00

Only a couple of months ago I embarked on an experiment wherein I planned to keep a close eye on my legislators. It wasn't without a little smugness that I decided that this was the best plan. Finally, people would read my pithy and undeniably sensible opinions and, one by one, all would be won over to my way of thinking. Finally a state, a nation, a world worth inhabiting! Of course my train of thought wasn't this narcissistic but there was a bit of this there.

So, I set up my goggle alerts and started watching. It hasn't been easy. It hasn't been hard, either. Anyone that knows me knows that I never volunteer for anything too hard. But it wasn't the simplest thing in the world. First, the officials elected in the 2006 Congressional turnover went a long way to disappoint me. I have a tendency to focus on the faults of people that I don't like so I was well versed on those areas that Republicans - mutual disagreement turned to hate when they impeached my president at the end of the last century - could stand to improve. But I was unprepared to learn about the warts on my saviours, the Democrats that gave them a thumpin'. Specifically Claire McCaskill.

Second, I learned in this brief time of paying extra attention to the actions of legislators that they grapple with some very complicated, involved, and mind numbingly boring issues. I read every news report that came up and studied each issue with which I wasn't familiar. Often after working my way through the day's information I would be too wilted or still too confused to write about it. So, on that level they, the legislators, have gained my respect.

Third, it was simply taking up too much brain space. As I deal with issues of my new ecommerce store, http://www.purpleporter.com, which is set to open any day now and my ongoing About.com site, I just have to dump something.

I'm dropping this experiment. This blog will return to the floundering bit of Internet noise that it's always been. I will try to keep up with something here but in the meantime check out http://beer.about.com.

Oh C'mon, Claire!

2007-01-04T05:43:00.000-06:00

I had two almost concurrent thoughts when I read this article about Claire McCaskill's financial juggling. The first was, "well, she's a snake in politics, what's new? Hopefully she'll still be able to use her position to advance some positive legislation." Sort of a stream of consciousness ends-justifies-means thing. The second thought I had as soon as I'd had the first was, "I bet that that's what Delay's supporters thought" when they started hearing of his questionable tactics that would eventually lead to his arrest and ethics charges.

So Claire has some debts from her 2004 race for Governor of Missouri. Fine, repay them. But the debt that's causing problems here is one that owed to Claire by her election fund. Basically she loaned herself this money and now she wants to bend the rules so she can pay herself back. The article doesn't say where the money would come from but now that she's in Washington where slimy money is slithering all over the place it's not hard to imagine what sort of sources she has in mind.

C'mon Claire! When you promised to root out financial corruption in Washington you surely didn't mean that you'd first wallow around in it!

Clair McCaskill - Dangerously Close to Breaking Her Own Rules

2007-01-03T04:19:00.000-06:00

My inclination is to defend Claire. I desperately wanted her to replace Talent and was very pleased when it happened. I've been generally optimistic about her future in the Senate and gratified to hear her talk about rooting out the monetary improprieties in Washington.

Then she hired her new chief of staff, Sean Kennedy. That would be all fine and dandy but for the latest entry on his resume: lobbyist for SBC Communications. Even that would be fine with me. As power shifts back and forth in Washington what are these people supposed to do when their party is out of power? Lobbying jobs make sense. Personally I couldn't do it. I know that no job in Washington is particularly pretty but could there be a more "wallowing with the swine" sort of job than being a lobbyist?

So why is this noteworthy? Because of Claire's promise to make Washington work for us! In this 15 point plan that she presented during her campaign she laid out some pretty tough restrictions to, if not severe, weaken the close ties between congress and the lobbyist. And hiring a recent lobbyist as her chief of staff doesn't directly violate her rules but it does seem to injure their spirit, particularly the "Break the Link Between Congressional Service and Lobbying Influence" section where she says we should:

Prohibit Lobbyists From Taking Campaign Positions With Members. Lobbyists like Jack Abramoff raise campaign funds to position themselves as power brokers with elected officials. Lobbyists commonly become fundraisers and use their connections to drag money into their candidate's coffers. The Center for Public Integrity cited that 79 Members of congress named lobbyists to serve as treasurers of their campaign committees.

It seems hard to believe that her campaign manager is going to remain totally aloof of Claire's reelection campaign.

Obviously this was an easy position for Claire to take during the 2005 campaign. With Delay and his cronies recently revealed to be the money and power grubbing pigs that they are this was a quick and easy way to score some political points. Frankly, it didn't have any sway over my support of her; every politician promises to clean up Washington and it's basically just white noise during the campaign. What, they expect their opponent to come out for corruption?

No, what bothers me is that Claire has so quickly and cavalierly violated the spirit if not the literal read of her campaign promises. I suppose I should be no more surprised by a politician breaking a promise than anything else but she's supposed to be one of the good guys. I'm still hoping that this is just a blip and not an indication of things to come.

Jason Crowell and Future Crimes

2006-12-29T06:48:00.000-06:00

Crowell has decided to go after sex offenders with eleven plus years clean. Seems that the 1995 Missouri law that requires offenders to stay registered only applies to offenders that were convicted after that time. Whatever; this blog entry isn't about sex offenders. It's how he proposes to do this.

Crowell decided that the best way to close this perceived loophole is to change the Missouri constitution to make it legal to go after ALL acts that later become crimes. So, if I want to, say, own a copy of the Koran and it later becomes illegal to purchase the book I could be convicted for breaking a law that didn't exist at the time. (Think this is a silly scenario? Try checking out a copy of this religious text at your local library and tell me that you don't once think that the FBI is filing that little bit of information away somewhere.) Actually, this is a pretty smart move on Crowell's part. As a politician he's got to worry about political opponents in the future. If he's having a particularly tough race he could simply create a law against something that his opponent has done and Voila! no opponent.

Let's hope that Missourians have enough sense to block this stupid amendment. If Crowell wants to go after aging sex offenders, he needs to find a better way to do it.

Is Kit Bond Quitting?

2006-12-29T06:34:00.000-06:00

The rumor mill has Kit Bond quitting and Matt Blunt replacing him in the Senate. This could be interesting. I really don't know where Bond stands on stem cell research but I'd guess that he's against it. If this happens that'd be one more Republican stem cell vote.

Claire McCaskill Interview

2006-12-27T08:25:00.000-06:00

Check out McCaskill's views on a few topics in this breif but interesting interview.

Even a Bridge to Nowhere Goes Somewhere

2006-12-22T08:26:00.000-06:00

I agree with the central idea of this report from the Center for Public Integrity that any instance of political consultants playing a dual role of lobbyists should be carefully examined. As more and more power winds up in the hands of fewer and fewer people, certain hats shouldn't hang on the same players' hat-stand.

But in this particular article I think that writer Sandy Bergo missed the mark when she tried to pin this practice on Christopher Bond, at least in the example she chose. I wouldn't be surprised if Bond was found to be a part of such practice; I tend to be suspicious of anyone that's been in politics as long as Kit. I'm just saying that the case Bergo uses to illustrate her point seems to fail. You can read the article for yourself but briefly, here's what happened: Tony Feather, who had acted as one of Bond's reelection consultants had switched hats and was now lobbying for a bridge from St. Louis, MO to Illinois. He had one meeting with Bond where they discussed this and Bond later became a key senator in getting the thing pushed through. Fine, Feather probably should have stayed away from the meeting but Bond would have pushed for this bridge anyway. He's a Missouri Senator and that's what Senators and congressmen do - get money for their districts. Whether Feather had been involved or not, Bond would have latched onto this project and held on with both hands. Besides pork for his state, it was also pork for one of the two liberal strongholds in his state. He'd be a fool to turn down any good will that he could garner from voters that typically reject his positions.

Claire and the Big Fence

2006-12-19T06:40:00.000-06:00

Claire McCaskill is promoting the border fence, according to the San Antonio Express-News. I'm amazed that this insane solution is still carries weight.

Of course, immigration creates problems - mostly only in the minds of the citizens. It always has and the country has always wound up accepting the immigrants and, in the end, benefitting from their contributions.

But building a fence or a wall will never work. Throughout history nations have tried and failed to build fences on their artificial borders. Fences work for cattle and other animals. They do not work for people. The immigrants are intelligent, ambitious people that want to come to the US to make better lives for themselves and their families. A fence won't stop them.

If you want to address illegal aliens, penalize their employers. It's just that simple. Enforce the existing laws and the jobs that beckon the immigrants and illegal immigration will dry up. Without this incentive of immediate cash, the immigrants will soon learn that the only way to come to this country will be via legal channels. Save the money on the building of this insane fence and use it on a more efficient immigration process. And, I'm betting that the jobs currently filled with illegal labor will be taken by the same population once they've passed through immigration putting an end to that jingo-redneck argument, "Them illegals is stealing my job!"

Fences only build anger and resentment. Whether you're trying to split a population as Isreal is currently doing or you're trying to enforce political boundaries as the communist countries of eastern Europe did, you're bound to fail. The anger builds pressure behind the wall until it pops like a champagne cork. It's impossible to predict how this will happen but it will. A border fence will only prove to be an expensive failure - expensive in the building, yes, but even more costly in the ramifications later.

Obsessing on Stem Cells

2006-12-14T07:40:00.000-06:00

The stated purpose of this blog these days is to keep an eye on my legislators. But given how the last election put Missouri in the spot light regarding the stem cell issue and its generally assumed importance in the election of McCaskill, I hope that you'll forgive a bit of a digression in that direction.

The Right hasn't gone nuts just yet over reports of possible baby-harvesting in the Ukraine. Nothing's really certain yet but there's a chance that live babies are being used as sources of stem cells. I'm not sure what they're waiting for but I'm sure this story will soon enough be seized upon by the right as evidence of where this whole issue can go.

I certainly hope that it turns out that this truly horrible possibility isn't proven. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised. While we debate about the ethics - a debate forced on us by the anti-abortion crowd - of stem cell research, nefarious elements are going to exploit our self paralysis. We must move forward with this. Let the scientist research embryonic stem-cells from fertility clinics that would be destroyed anyway when the owners conceive or give up.

The idea that this is going to get out of control and lead to whole human cloning is just silly. This argument could be applied to anything. If we allow the legal ownership of handguns won't this lead to a population at war with itself? We have our share of gun related homicides in the US but there's nothing that could suggest it's out of control. Government regulated stem-cell research would be the same.

And as far as baby harvesting, this also would never happen. If scientist were allowed access to the embryonic stems cells that are currently available, the black market for stem-cells harvested from live babies wouldn't exist.

Squeezing MOHELA

2006-12-10T08:05:00.000-06:00

I'm really not sure what to think of this issue. I've been watching it since it was a glint in Gov. Blunt's eye. There seems to be some sense to it. Cash in some of the assets in MOHELA and use the money on state colleges. "Assets," as I understand them, are the loans held by MOHELA. They would be, and have been at this point, sold to other loan companies for less than their yield over time for a quick payoff now. Though the assurances haven't been made in this particular article, I've read in the past that the politicians have promised that the purchasing companies wouldn't raise the rates once they own the loans. And if a politician promises it...

So, Blunt took his idea, established a board and they put it into motion. Now it has generated $17 million and colleges around Missouri are eagerly awaiting their piece. But Clint Zweifel, D-Florissant, says this isn't right. MOHELA's money should be used for MOHELA stuff, specifically lowering rates or forgiving loans. Blunt and our own Nathan Cooper, whose constituency is very interested in seeing the promised improvements on Southeast Missouri State University, say nonsense.

Here's what I keep wondering. What was that money supposed to do in the original plan? So MOHELA sold some "assets" and has more money than usual right now but what about later when these assets were supposed to be paying off? Will MOHELA have the cash to cover students' loan needs in 10 or 20 years?

B'bye Jim Talent

2006-12-09T07:36:00.000-06:00

Here's the KC Star's report on Talent's farewell speach to the Senate. I agree with his position on health insurance for small businesses. But he can stick it on his attempts to blame any military shortfalls on Clinton, the obvious implication of his claim that changes "decisions over the last 15 years" have left the Army and Navy too small and outdated. We were doing fine until he backed Bush in an illegal invasion of Iraq.

But I won't spend too much time dwelling on Talent. He's out.

Here's an amusing look at this and other farewells.

Kit and the Founding Fathers

2006-12-09T07:11:00.000-06:00

I'm sure you've heard that a federal appeals court recently declared the phrase "under god" in the pledge to be unconstitutional. This has seemed so obvious to me for so long, I had just numbed myself to the issue because I thought that fighting it was a pointless and unwinnable endeavour. Anyway, now it's been successfully challenged and that's a good thing.

So, what does Senator Bond have to say about this? He's turned to that tired Republican claim that they know the hearts of the founding fathers:

Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. This is the worst kind of political correctness run amok. What's next? Will the courts now strip 'so help me God' from the pledge taken by new presidents?

We can only hope, Kit. I get really impatient with this kind of talk. Which founding father exactly are you referring to? Where's your proof that he wanted America to be a theocracy?

Here's a brief history of the pledge and some great opining from Callimachus at Donklephant.

Is the Army Denying Treatment For Soldiers with PTSD?

2006-12-09T06:59:00.000-06:00

Christopher Bond has joined with Barbara Boxer and Barack Obama, both Democrats, to try to put some pressure on the Army to explain why soldiers stationed at Fort Carson, CO are apparently being denied treatment for post traumatic stress disorder. Good for you, Kit!

Why Do the Republicans Think That the Liberterian Vote Belongs To Them?

2006-12-09T06:17:00.000-06:00

After a race so close in 2000 that the Supreme Court had to hand the victory, inexplicably, to Bush many Democrats began to look askance at Ralph Nader. His shaving off of the ultra-left fringes of the party, they assumed, accounted for enough lost votes on the Democrat's side to have caused this loss. This might be true and it's very likely that these voters, if forced to choose between Gore and Bush would have chosen Gore. But everyone forgets that 1) all left votes don't belong to anybody and 2) it's equally likely that these ultra-left voters would have stayed home as come out and vote for Gore. They knew that they were throwing their votes away with these symbolic votes for a candidate with no chance. Today third party voters in a presidential election know that.

Now, in looking for anyone to blame but themselves, Republican's are trying to similarly lay the blame at the feet of the Libertarians. I dismissed the first report of this that I saw assuming that it was just some lonely loon shouting in the wind but this claim seems to be gathering some momentum. One stat that they like to point to is that Claire McCaskill (D) beat Jim Talent (R) in Missouri by 41,000 votes and the Libertarians in this state cast 47,000 votes for their candidate. This is even sillier than the Dems blaming Nader for losing the election for Gore. Libertarians are a different breed than the ultra-left that Ralphie attracted. They are more likely to vote and are much more engaged in the whole political process. They are also, more importantly, much more centrist in their thinking. They are often described as economically conservative and socially liberal, a position shared by many voters that call themselves independent. Since neither party is economically conservative these days if a Libertarian is going to vote for one of the two parties it seems that they are going to have to choose a democrat. But, unlike the presidential election, third parties actually do have a bit of a chance in Senate and House races. It's slim but it's there. So these all of votes might not have been symbolic throw-aways. Some of them might have been sincere attempts on the voters' parts to put their guy in office.

I'm hoping that the absurdity of these claims is self evident within the reports themselves. For example, in the article that I sited, the writers imply early on that the Libertarians stole the Missourian election from Talent. But they contradict themselves only a few paragraphs down by admitting the stupidity in Iraq has been draining the Libertarian voters away from the Republican party and to the Democrats. In fact, they say, Kerry got 38% of the Libertarian vote in 2004. Plus, if you add to that the fact that because the Republicans have framed the debate over stem-cell research, an issue of major importance in the Missouri race, as an abortion issue they've made it a social question. And how do Libertarians lean socially?

The Republicans lost. They did it all on their own. They should stop looking for someone else to blame. All the Democrats had to do, thankfully, to win this one was show up and not be Republicans.

Christopher "Kit" Bond Hates Planet Earth

2006-12-08T07:02:00.000-06:00

Kit, predictably, is aligned with the global-warming-is-a-bunch-of-hooey crowd. No surprise, really. Besides, he argues, it would cost a lot to do anything about it. Well, the thirty foot dike on our coastlines that we'll have to build when Greenland melts might make a bit of a dent in the national budget, too.

We've managed to squeeze out more than a few pennies for Bush's Iraqi excursion. I haven't heard Bond complaining about that outrageous expense.

Setting the Stage

2006-12-07T04:29:00.000-06:00

It's no surprise to hear that Kit Bond and his fellow Republicans are already preparing to block most of the Iraq study group's report. Of course they're not saying "Thanks but no thanks;" it wouldn't poll very well. But they're already rolling out their politician-speak to say just as much. Yesterday Kit said that any recommendations should be "subject to what happens on the ground. Iraq is a key element to the war on terror and we cannot afford to walk away." That's his get out of jail free card. Now in three months when he's blocking most parts of the proposal he can say, "Hey, I said from the beginning..."

Here's my prediction. Early next year the house and senate will tell us that they're going to do their part to take on the reports recommendations. They will go into committee and there will be a lot of bright and shiny talk about how things will get better. What will emerge from the committees will be unrecognizable when compared to the original report but there will still be lots of talk about it. At this point there won't be much speculation about the great changes it will bring but its name will be repeated over and over. What's its name going to be? Well your guess is as good as mine but it will be something superlative like "The Great and Beautiful Way Out of All International Messes Forever Bill." So, the name will get pounded into our heads over and over until we start to believe that it actually will get us out of this and all other internation problems forever and ever, amen. By now compromise after compromise with the fascist administration will have it such a toothless thing that all it will really accomplish will be to add a wing to a dairy museum in Nebraska. The president will be glad to sign it. Then we'll wait for the nightmare in Iraq to end. By the time we realize that it won't another year will have passed and we'll be in the 2008 election so who'll have time for Iraq?

The National Gaurd Empowerment Act

2006-12-06T14:10:00.000-06:00

This seems like a pretty good idea. Here's the gist:

The proposal would expand the role of the Guard chief and give him or her a fourth star; give the Guard more influence in the Pentagon’s budget and create a separate budget for Guard training and equipment; elevate the role of the Guard when responding to domestic crises; and make the deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command a Guard officer.

Kit Bond is proposing this along with Sen. Pat Leahy, D. Vt. With the Gaurd's increasing importance to the overall military, especially in light of the mess in Iraq, a little autonomy might be a good thing.

I don't know how much this will help the individual soldiers that are on their third or fourth tour since joining the guard. Don't get me wrong, it irritates the hell out of me when somebody in the guard tries to resist actually serving a tour of duty for whatever reason. That's what they signed up for! But, these guys shouldn't have to fill a full time soldier's role because it's politically inconvenient to establish a draft. One long tour, maybe two but that should be it. After that, the president should have to look elsewhere and if the war that he started requires a draft, then so be it.

Healthcare, Health Insurance for Small Business, and Social Security Tax Are Part of Crowell's Game Plan

2006-12-04T07:08:00.000-06:00

From a Southeast Missourian article here's what Jason Crowel is planning to tackle next year:

Tops on Crowell's agenda is the I-Care Missouri health-care plan. The plan seeks to create individualized access to health care and allow people to be treated by a primary-care physician rather than emergency room doctors.

"Far too many of our population have a better relationship with their auto mechanic than they do with their physician," Crowell said.

The plan would allow small businesses to band together and form alliances for the sole purpose of buying health care. It would also, Crowell said, create a system that travels with the individual instead of depending on the employer.

"Every Missourian gets a primary-care physician. If you ask doctors if they could wave a magic wand what one thing could result in the biggest benefit to the state's health, it would be that," Crowell said. "It's the difference, for example, between treating diabetes with a nutrition diet as opposed to a hypoglycemic diet later on."

Crowell would also like to stop taxing Social Security benefits.

"Missouri is one of only 15 states in the U.S. that puts in place a state income tax on Social Security benefits," he said.

"Depending on the numbers, if we were to eliminate state income on Social Security benefits it would mean 80 to 100 million more dollars in the hands of retired seniors."

It's hard to comment on this without more information. I certainly like the idea of letting small businesses band together for health insurance. And doing away with a social security tax seems fair, too. I've always thought it curious that anyone receiving money from the government, whether it be through employment or benefits, should pay taxes. If the govt needs that money they could simply pay less and cut out a lot of bureaucracy.

I wonder, though, about the "individualized access to health-care." As with so many health care issues, the devil's in the details. How does he plan to implement this? How much annoying oversight will this subject the Doctors to? Are health care costs going to rise as compliance forces the doctors offices to hire more staff to keep up? This will be something to watch.

Kit MIGHT Be Listening

2006-12-02T08:42:00.000-06:00

In November 2006 Missourians voted for stem cell research. Most of us realize it's time to stick a pin in the abortion debate which is completely irrelevant to the stem cell debate to anyone with brain wave activity, and move forward with research that hardly any of us understands but the scientists say they need to do. And Christopher Bond might actually be listening, at least according to the AP. Here's what reporter Laurie Kellman has to say:

Bond spokesman Rob Ostrander left open the prospect of the senator changing his vote from a no last year to a yes this year. Bond, Ostrander said Tuesday in a statement, "is reluctant to support an expansion of the president's stem cell policy that allows federal taxpayer dollars to be used for research in which human embryos are destroyed."

Now, to me that quote is too ambiguous to even indicate firm ambiguity but if Kellman's interpretation is correct then Kit might be switching positions so that he'll be more in line with the rest of Missouri. Or he might not.

This Again?

2006-12-02T08:25:00.000-06:00

Not wanting to beat a dead horse but let's talk abortion. People should have the right to choose. It's very simple. There is obviously a division in the nation over this, one often exploited by political operatives. As long as such a large percentage of the population feels that this is right that should be protected it should be. Democracy, remember? Jason Crowell disagrees, apparently in all cases except those where health is an issue. Rape victims, though, should have to carry their little bundles of joy to term.

So, JC is trying to introduce legislation specifically designed to wind up in front of the Federal Supreme Court. I thought that the Republicans were opposed to legislating through the courts. I guess that only applies when their positions are being threatened.

Never Assume

2006-12-02T08:21:00.000-06:00

I always thought that our journalists had the right to protect their sources. Well, apparently not so in Missouri. Jason Crowell, of Cape Girardeau, and Chuck Graham, of Columbia recently tried and failed to put such protections in place. That's a shame. Reporters should be able to talk to whomever they need without their informants fearing exposure and reprisal.

Some critics of this protection say that it will lead to employees and insiders with grudges being given carte blanche to say what they want and it would. But it doesn't require the reporter to print their lies. The responsible reporter will investigate and, if the claims are supported, then print it. And what about the irresponsible reporter? Well, if their editors print the story based on shoddy investigations, which I would hope they wouldn't, the lies will be exposed and the publication discredited. It's not a perfect system but it's better than the alternative - zero access for reporters and therefore no public oversight of government and big corporations. But the reporters that really bother me are those that simply do nothing. They read the headlines, regurgitate them, and call it news. Or worse, parrot the talking points in the memo from upstairs. That's the irresponsible reporting that's really hurting the citizenry's' right to be informed these days.

But I digress. Kudos to Crowell for supporting this important protection. Better luck next time!

Send in the bean counters!

2006-12-01T21:05:00.000-06:00

It's going to take the annoying tenacity stereotypically assigned to accountant types to untangle all of the misdeads in Washington of the last six years. I'm glad to read that Claire McCaskill, former Missouri auditor, will be leading the charge.

She says she's making wasteful spending and governemt corruption personal crusades and she'll have the power to back up her investigations. Not only will she hit the ground running with a request for 20 audits performed over the last two years by the GAO, but she has also landed some pretty sweet committe assignments - Senate Armed Services, Commerce and Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

I hope that when we look back six years from now we see that she was the junior Senator that could.

Piping hot cup of giddy optimism anyone?

Attempting To Give This Blog a Point

2006-12-01T09:59:00.000-06:00

I'm going to try something different from the aimless meandering that has defined this blog until now. It's hard to know whether I will stick to it or not but I'm going to give it a shot anyway. I'm going to focus on my legislators. I'm going to watch the news and comment on any of their goings on that strike me worth mentioning.

Here is who a majority of my fellow southeast Missourians have chosen to represent me:

Christopher S. "Kit" Bond (R)

Claire McCaskill (D)

Jo Ann Emerson (R)

Jason G. Crowell (R)

- by the way, here's his CV.

Nathan D. Cooper (R)

Disappeared

2006-08-21T20:28:00.000-05:00

Anyone that's been regularly checking this blog knows that I have been virtually non-existent on it this summer. I have a really good excuse. In June I was made the About guide for beer. This, along with my other ventures, has been dominating my time. But I'm starting to gain control of my time once again and hope to begin posting regularly now.

In the meantime, though, please check out my About page. The address is http://beer.about.com

Jo Ann Emerson Called Me a What!??!

2006-04-20T12:03:00.000-05:00

According to a recent AP article my congressional representative called one of my fellow constituents an asshole in a letter. Or as the writer puts it in revealingly discreet prose, “a profane, seven-letter insult beginning with the letter A – ‘i think you're an ...’”

I used to get these horribly condescending emails from my boss. He tended to simultaneously shove all of his duties onto those of us that worked for him and make us look like drooling idiots at the same time. For instance, let’s say that his boss told him to fetch a cup of coffee and he decided to pass the job on to me. (Never happened but frankly I wouldn’t have been all that surprised if it had.) Here’s how he would have handled that. In an email addressed to me and CC’d to his boss, the district manager, the sales manager, our three most important customers, and our busybody receptionist he would have written: “Bryce, My boss asked me to ask you [lie] to fetch him a cup of coffee. Now, I know that you’ve been in our break room 1,385 times since you started working here but I’m going to treat you like the vegetable with legs that we all know that you are. First, the cups are kept in the cabinet about the coffee dispenser. Take a cup. Just one because my boss only wants one. Next, you get coffee out of the dispenser by pressing… Once you have the cup of coffee, stop by my office so that I can inspect it and make sure that you’ve done it right. Then, once I’ve confirmed that it is OK, I’ll let you carry it into my boss’s office while I sit on my fat ass and find more ways to humiliate and frustrate you.”

And what could I do but get the coffee? But first, after cursing to myself, I would write a nasty reply telling him exactly what I thought of him. I wouldn’t censure myself at all. I’d just let the vile juices flow. Then I’d promptly delete the reply, tuck my tail and fetch. (I’m SO glad that I quit that job!)

Now, we’ve all done that, right? And I’m sure that a few of these messages accidentally get sent. It’s an easy mistake to make with email. But this letter from Rep. Emerson was something special.

Here’s the scenario that I see in my mind. One of Rep Emerson’s underpaid but full of zeal lackeys was given the assignment of replying to all of the mail that they had backed up. After reading letter after letter complaining about this and that that his infallible leader had done, he finally had his fill. To unload some of the frustration that had been building he added to the bottom of one of the letters, “You’re an asshole.” Maybe he did it more than once. But one of the letters slipped by him before he could delete that last sentence and it got printed. OK, that’s understandable. As easy to do as sending that email.

But the real delight in this story is that in a note at the bottom of the letter there’s a post script apologizing for the delay. It’s in Emerson’s handwriting. So, she actually looked at the letter before it went out.

Here’s why I find this story so pleasing. It’s not because I take pleasure in seeing elected officials screw up. I’d take pleasure in seeing a lot less of that, actually. No, I love this story because, though we all know that our elected officials and their hangers on have no respect for their constituency, we rarely get such concrete evidence of their disrespect. It’s apparent in the laws they pass and what they do with our tax money. It’s obvious in the campaigns that they run – begging us not to think about the issues but to simply vote based on fear or anger with those that disagree with us. But there’s a small satisfaction in have this disdain for us so clearly demonstrated. It’s nice to have my suspicions validated.

General Disarray

2006-04-19T11:43:00.000-05:00

In a reprint from the Wall Street Journal, my local newspaper published an op-ed today entitled “General Consensus.” It is in response the six generals that have recently come out in favor of showing the Rumsfeld the door written by four other generals.

Basically it’s the usual arguments that one would expect including that frustrating recurring argument that one should not question the president or his administration in time of war. I personally think that this is the silliest argument ever. I think that there is no better time to question a president. If the country has been led into a war the commander in chief had better have some good reasons for taking us there and if not should be brought to task over it. But both sides of this argument are as old as war itself so I won’t belabor it any more here.

What really makes me crawl the wall in this op-ed piece is this statement: “It unfortunately appears that two of [of the six] the retired generals (Messrs. Zinni and Newbold) do not understand the true nature of this radical ideology, Islamic extremism, and why we fight in Iraq. We suggest they listen to the tapes of United 93.”

First, I hate when pundits go opining and make vague and indefensible references like this. Why exactly do you feel that these generals don’t understand the true nature of the conflict or not? Whether you have a good reason for saying that, you come across as mean little men taking a cheap shot if you don’t back up these kinds of statements.

Then “Messrs.?” Oh, c’mon. Really?

But what really gets me is the 9/11 callback. Heretofore, this piece tried to present itself as thoughtful and reasoned in its approach to rebuffing the presidents *gasp* critics. OK, for anyone that’s been in a coma for the last five years or is just too stupid to have gotten the message by now, let me say again. IRAQ HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH, 2001. Print that out and clip that previous sentence. Paste it to your bathroom mirror until you finally get it.

I have no idea why Bush dragged us to war. Some say oil. Some say to perpetuate the war machine. I just don’t know. I know that he’s a liar and obviously has some sort of agenda. But at no time do I think that he believed nor did anyone, that has any realistic understanding of the situation, believe that Iraq or Hussein had anything to do with 9/11. That’s not to say that he didn’t exploit that fiction as much as he possibly could. He won an election by deceiving his coalition of the willing voters – willing or lazy enough to believe this spoon fed fiction.

But he’s won the election. We’re in Iraq and nobody can defensibly say that we should immediately pull out so can we just cut the crap already? Please stop trying to convince everyone that Saddam was involved in 9/11. He wasn’t. Accept it.

My new blog about web traffic web marketing and affiliate marketing programs blog

2006-01-26T10:12:00.000-06:00

I’ve started another blog - Not Another Guru. It’s not just because Bryce On Bryce has absolutely no clear focus – which I realize it doesn’t – but because I quit my job. Not that anybody would really care that I quit my job but the “why” should prove informative to those interested in affiliate marketing programs or any sort of web internet marketing.

For a while now I’ve been developing my little empire on the web. Internet marketing finally made enough for me to turn in my two weeks notice back in November and now I know that I’ll never have to go back.

Though I read a lot of information on affiliate marketing programs and studied all of their promises I never found the perfect web marketing tool. Even the top affiliate programs failed in one area: web traffic. Web marketing is about two things – something to sell (affiliate marketing programs take care of that) and driving traffic to your site.

And that’s really the biggest problem: web traffic. Web marketing successfully requires that you have some way to drive traffic. There are really two ways to do that – pay for it or optimize your site. Site optimization isn’t really free. You either have to take the time to learn how to do it yourself and then do it, or you have to pay someone else. Paid traffic is almost instant but it creates a potentially crippling overhead that most web site marketing companies can’t handle.

But I’ve managed some success on the web. Internet marketing has finally paid off and I want to share my success with anyone that wants to hear about it. Naturally I’m selling a web marketing tool or two and I’ve posted some Adsense ads on the blog but then that’s what I do now!

So, enjoy Not Another Guru. I hope that you learn something about web affiliate program management and web online marketing in general. Please post comments and questions and I’ll address them as quickly as possible.

Film Review The God Who Wasn't There -Brian Flemming

2006-01-21T12:29:00.000-06:00

In the interest of full disclosure I should tell you that I am an atheist. For those that know me, this is no shock. Those that don’t know me probably don’t care. I only point it out so that you can know my perspective of this DVD.

The movie has a fascinating beginning. In an amusing montage of old movie clips and under Brian Flemming’s near sarcastic narration we are presented with the story of Jesus. The kitchiness of the old films and Flemming’s barely contained chuckle through it all do a very good job of showing how Christ’s allegedly miraculous time on Earth appears to those of us on the outside - as whole lot of hooey.

After this quick recap of Christianity, Brian makes the surprising ascertain that Jesus never actually existed. This was a new one for me. I’ve always assumed that he did exist but was just one of the best documented cases of a messiah complex in history.

This is the kind of stuff that I can really get into. I’ve truly enjoyed the ride of The Da Vinci Code with all of the reactions and reactions to the reactions. I love to sink my teeth into conspiracy theories and history. And what better historical conspiracy could there be than the invention of the Christ?

But, despite the title of the film, very little time was spent on this angle In fact with my first viewing, I wasn’t really sure what the point of this DVD was except for Mr. Fleming to declare as loudly as he can that he doesn’t believe.

For after making the claim that Christ never existed and backing it up with a few facts presented with the same chuckling sneer, Flemming moves right on to begin ridiculing Christians and poking at them from every perspective that he can.

He explores the separation between the God of the bible, vengeful and absolute in law, and the God of today’s Christianity, more Care Bear than maker and overlord of all things. He examines the more likely folk tale roots of the “facts” of the bible. He discusses moral atheism, a concept that seems to be an oxymoron to many people today, with a handful of interesting scholars and thinkers.

In fact, it was these experts that I found myself enjoying the most. As the film moved on and went deeper into Flemming’s personal journey from a devout christian to an even more devoted atheist, I found myself liking him less and less. In the end Flemming, at the height of narcissism, revisits his old school – a Christian institution. The point of his visit and interview with its principal is really unclear though Flemming seems to think that he taking a stand. Really, he appears to whine about a time in his life that he’d rather have gone another way. While the principal does a fine job of remaining calm under his accusatory and erratic form of questioning, Flemming believes that he’s building the situation to a dramatic victory. When the principal mentions some sort of trouble that Flemming got himself into while at the school and ends the interview by walking away, Flemming gets his final victory by going to the school’s chapel where he thrice accepted Christ and declares that he now denies the existence of the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps the only reason that I would watch this DVD all the way to the end is that I agree with every conclusion that Fleming has reached in life. In fact what he does tell about his life closely parallels mine.

I share with him the mixture of disgust, amusement and fear at the fundamentalist protestant christian movement that has become so powerful in almost every way in the United States today. My inclination is to praise this DVD but I try to look at works like this from the perspective of the other guy as much as I can and from that angle he failed miserably.

At the risk of abusing a metaphor, Flemming is preaching to the choir.

Any Christian that could sit through the first ten minutes of this film and not either walk out of the room or throw their DVD player through the window deserves high praise. Nevertheless, Flemming’s disparagement is so complete I can’t imagine that this Christian, patient as he or she might be, would be able to entertain any of the ideas presented. And that’s a shame because many of them are quite compelling.

With an attitude that both sides of the widening cultural divide in the United States is guilty of, Flemming does more than say that he disagrees with most of his countrymen. He loudly and proudly says that they are hateful, despicable, clownish oafs. He presents the extremes of their points of views as mainstream and damns them all for it.

Once again, I’m tempted to go along with him in this but I’m embarrassed at his maltreatment. Most Christians, like most people, think of themselves as good people and believe that they are doing the best that they can for themselves and the world. At one point Flemming does admit this but it is so deep in the film and a Christian would have to wade through so much muck that it hardly rights the wrong.

I watched the film again, trying to find where I might have misinterpreted something or taken Flemming’s approach too literally. I couldn’t find it. I also watched every minute of the extras, half because I found the experts very interesting and half to try to find the film’s message.

I finally found it. The last extra is a captioned slide show that purports to go deeper into the subject. Really it is little more than a recap with clearer references to the source materials. Then at the very end of the slide show, though, I finally got it.

For lack of a better word, this video is evangelical propaganda for an aggressive atheistic movement.

Really!

I couldn’t believe it. What good word is there to spread? I’ve been an atheist for years and I’ve never found it to be particularly fulfilling and I’ve never felt the need to convert anyone else. It’s not about fulfillment; it’s just a rational choice that one makes. Nor is it a lifestyle or life philosophy. I don’t ask myself at the end of each day whether or not I was a good atheist today.

But Flemming seems to be targeting people just like me and in that light the whole video, save that bit at his old school, makes a lot of sense and frankly is quite well done. Most of the experts in the film share a belief that christians are not only wrong but they’re dangerous. It’s hard to look into history and disagree. And today it seems even worse with so many of the political and cultural battles being waged on protestant fundamentalist lines. Once the film has gotten to the targeted viewer – because most christians would have already shut it off or walked out of the room – Flemming offers some atheistic, naturalistic, antireligious or whatever you want to call them organizations at the end of that slide show. I can’t deny that I’m intrigued so it appears that his propaganda has worked at least in this case.

I just hate feeling manipulated.

Book Review: The New Health Insurance Solution by Paul Zane Pilzer

2005-12-19T14:14:00.000-06:00

I wanted to actually try Mr. Pilzer’s suggestions before writing this but I just haven’t been able to get to it. I will post my results later when I have.

The biggest challenge this book presents is that you actually have to pay attention to your health insurance. This is something that I, and I’d say most Americans, have never really done. I have insurance through my employer. There’s something about a deductible and that’s about all I usually know.

Until something happens, that is. I really woke up to this when two things happened. I broke my thumb over the summer. This required surgery and follow up appointments which racked up quite a bill. In the end, the whole ordeal cost well over $5K! And, miraculously and somewhat mysteriously, my insurance paid all but $109. That’s all I had to pay.

Amazing.

Then in October I decided that I wanted to strike out on my own. I quit my job, set up a consulting business, and immediately started worrying about health insurance. For me, this detail is even more worrisome than taxes.

For the time being, we are on my wife’s insurance but frankly it’s not a very good plan and it’s quite expensive. I planned to find individual insurance as soon as I could anyway and now I feel a lot more confident about this process thanks to Pilzer’s book.

In the first place, this guy is excited about health insurance. I really have never encountered anyone with so much enthusiasm for this, to me, mind numbingly boring topic. His excitement really comes through in the book. Under most writers I wouldn’t make it two paragraphs into this subject before falling asleep. But Pilzer keeps the reader’s attention with his enthusiasm.

It also helps that the text is often interrupted with charts, text boxes, subheading, etc. All of this drags you along as he explains his rather simple solution to rising employer health care costs.

His solution, and I’m not spilling the beans on him here because it’s right there in the title, is to leave your traditional employer provided healthcare plan. He argues that things are such now that obtaining individual insurance is actually cheaper and can provide better coverage for healthy individuals than under the old system of employer provided insurance.

“Yeah, right,” you’re probably thinking. Conventional wisdom says that purchasing individual health insurance is cripplingly expensive. That’s what I believed when I saw the synopsis of this book. But Pilzer demonstrates how one can combine high deductible individual insurance with a new financial tool that Congress recently put into place called an HAS to make it work.

Like I said, I haven’t tried it yet myself but I will.

I sat down with this book and read it cover to cover but only because I planned to write this review. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone else nor would I do it myself if I were reading it for the first time. Even with the enthusiasm and attention grabbing format I mentioned above I found my mind wandering while I read it. This IS a book about health insurance, after all, and there’s only so much you can do with this subject.

And Pilzer apparently realizes this. Mercifully, the first section of the book, directly after the table of contents, is called “Executive Summary.” In it he presents almost every realistic health insurance scenario followed by a summarized solution and where you can find the specific details of his solution in the book. So in some ways this can be called a reference manual to Pilzer’s new health insurance solution.

And he doesn’t just cover individuals. There is quite a lot written for businesses about how they can take advantages of the new health insurance laws to cut their costs for health insurance. The most innovative approach was to educate employees about the cheaper solutions available to them for finding individual insurance then compensating them, before taxes, for their costs at a fraction of the overall costs associated with the traditional arrangement. Everybody wins.

So, if you have health insurance, need insurance or handle the insurance for your company, I recommend this book.

Book Review: The Soul of America by Abraham King

2005-11-28T13:33:00.000-06:00

Do you know where the soul of America is? I do but I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to read the book.

Actually, this book is less concerned with America’s soul than those parts that have become separated from it. Specifically religion, business, politics, the workers – well, the whole country, I suppose - and each part is represented by a caricature designed for first time novelist Abraham King’s dissection and criticism.

The book opens and closes on a flea market – a nice device that prepares the reader for the messiness of all that will come. Surrounded as it is by the chaos of mounds of junk for sale and grubby customers rifling through old pots and pans, the book produces a futility for the characters as they try to enforce some sort of order to their life.

While each character desperately clings to whatever portion of the American pie he has gained, he is unaware of the ground crumbling beneath him. We are shown how the actions of each contribute directly to the decline of America. This demonstrates a perpetuation of power on the parts of both the powerful and powerless that vexes the entire novel.

The caricature studies begin with the militia man without a militia. He has a credo and an agenda but no followers. He is followed by two religious leaders, one who is slowly converting his church to a shopping mall and another who doesn’t really seem to have a church at all. We also meet the business tycoon whose entire existence is literally and necessarily spent at his desk as it contains the life support systems for his failing body. The working poor and the middle management employee help to round out this modern American morality play. Finally, the government overseeing this madness is run by amateurs trained by amateurs with no greater goal than to stay in office.

Anything here sound familiar? If there is a genius to King it is that he can take the ills intrinsic to the point of being familiar in modern American society and twist them through hyperbole so that we are reintroduced to their corrosive nature. He holds up a circus mirror to make us reexamine the evils that we have become used to.

This very act produces not only a chance to see the America with fresh eyes but many chances at humor. For all of the darkness here, there is a great deal of comedy. I found myself laughing aloud and while simultaneously horrified by book’s macabre twists.

You might have noticed, if you try to be a politically correct grammarian as I do, that I seem to have slipped into the now archaic method of referring generically to all persons with a masculine pronoun. This is not the case. Except for one or two minor characters, this book is devoid of women. I’m not sure if this is an oversight by the author or another of his many points regarding what is wrong with America today. Given Abraham’s taut metaphors, I tend to think the later.

This is really an entertaining book. The idea is well conceived and the characters, even if I can’t find myself caring for even the most sympathetic of them, are interesting enough to keep the pages turning.

But then this is a parable and who needs depth?

Book Review: Blog Marketing by Jeremy Wright

2005-09-12T15:25:00.000-05:00

Blog or die. That’s Jeremy Wright’s message to the modern business. He tells us that customers have come to expect a business to have a blog. And, even if a business doesn’t have a blog, they will still be blogged about so every person invested in the success of a business should follow its public image in the blogoshere.

This book was rather thicker than I thought possible given the subject of blogs. Blogs are places where anyone of any level or skill can trumpet their thoughts, opinions, or musings. What more could possibly be said about them?

Quite a lot, actually.

One point, though, before I get into this book. The title is a bit misleading perhaps. If you are a sales person or trying to market something, do not expect this book to do much to help you use blogs to move product. This book concerns itself with the big picture. Wright is more interested in using blogs to improve a businesses public image than for moving individual units.

The book opens with a couple of obligatory chapters for the uninitiated. This book is written to the businessman, not the blogger, and Wright provides enough background and examples to prepare his audience for the blogoshpere. Then he launches into the meaning of blogs to business. He covers the various possible uses – both internal and external – of blogs for businesses. Wright tells us that a blog is so much more than the traditional advertising or press release style of business to customer communication. That old monologue can be abandoned for the more productive dialogue that blogs make possible. They now have the opportunity to interact with customers in a way that they never could before. Blogs also offer new internal communication solutions to businesses, either company wide or within a department or even a few coworkers involved in a project.

Another invaluable use for of blogosphere to businesses that Wright points out is monitoring what other blogs are saying about your business and industry. Wright argues that this puts the decision makers in an unprecedented position of being able to move swiftly and react quickly to issues that might arise with such things as product malfunction, similar issues with competitors, problems with suppliers or vendors. The blogosphere discusses everything; therefore something worth knowing is bound to come up.

Next Wright offers a few pointers on how to interact with your business’s blog. Gone are the days, he repeats time and again, when businesses can speak down to their customers but never listen. He offers advice on dealing with praise and, most importantly, negative comments on the business’s or others’ blogs.

He wraps up the book with tips on how to succeed in blogging and even makes a few predictions for the future of blogging.

Throughout the book Wright maintains a passionate message that businesses simply must blog or they will quickly go the way of buggy whip makers. His message is so fervent that I felt that I need to start a business blog and soon! Better start a business first, though. Now that I’ve stepped back a bit, though, I really don’t know if I buy this message.

Undeniably, blogs can offer lots of advantages and conveniences to modern businesses. They are cheap, easy to maintain and offer a simple way to communicate that won’t have the IT department tied down with extra work. But blog or die? There is one fact that Wright overlooks. Bloggers do not represent the world. Bloggers, I mean consistent participants in the blogosphere, have different goals and expectations from companies than the population in general. Businesses can still succeed and will be able to indefinitely without maintaining a public blog.

This isn’t to diminish the importance of blogs. I just question the necessity of blogs to businesses that Wright maintains.

As a casual blogger myself, I found a lot of interesting and fascinating information in this book. From uses of the various and heretofore unimaginable tools that have sprung up around the blogging community to the blogs of top executives, I learned a lot from this book. If you are a dedicated blogged and pinging is old news to you, you probably won’t learn a lot from this book. If, like me, you have only a passing knowledge of the blog world or if you are considering adding a blog to your businesses profile, you’ll find some invaluable information in this book.

Jackasses with Bullhorns – Pat Robertson Vs. Hugo Chavez

2005-08-24T12:33:00.000-05:00

People of every political color spoke up yesterday against Pat Robertson’s absurd utterance on his TV show, “The 700 Club” or as I like to call it, “Sit in Awe of Our Piety while You Watch Us Pray on TV.” And, of course, it was a silly thing to say. That’s not to say that we won’t do it, it’s just you don’t go out on the crazy limb until the government goes there first. Then Pat and every other meaningless mouth on TV can dance on that limb – debating their extreme sides of it.

Craziness, on the national level, is a very subjective thing. Think of the major issues being debated today and consider whether or not they would have seemed silly to even consider only a few years ago. Many would.

There’s a skill and a subtlety to floating the crazy balloon. First, you spend months softening the ground. Leak reports, testify before Congress and the UN, issue statements, and repeat. Keep repeating until even the subject matter is reduced to an acronym. When Jay Leno uses it in his monologue, you’re ready for the next step.

In this case, a debate should have been started months ago about whether or not we should explore the viability of eliminating leaders of oil producing empires. Reports should have been leaked about findings of the specific sins of these bastards; high ranking officials should have been sent before various national and world bodies with plenty of visual props to testify about the dangers of letting such leaders continue their frightening rule. Then when the White house press corps started asked about the issue, the press secretary could have let them know that those in the know are calling it ELOPE, short for Elimination of Leaders of Oil Producing Empires. So, when the conversation turned to specific people, it would have sounded so much better. It also makes the transition to late night talk shows that much easier. Just think of all the possible jokes about eloping.

Now the ground would have been soft. People would be ready to hear that we want to kill Hugo Chavez. Some would even be clamoring for it. Now Pat Robertson wouldn’t be a crazy shouting alone, he’d be the spokesman for the religious right taking a courageous position as the leader in a just cause. And it would sound so much better – “If Hugo Chavez is looking for a fight, maybe we should just elope him and save a few dollars on a full blown war!”

Is Pat really that inept? As he pointed out today this has really all been taken out of context and blown out of proportion. He explained that he never used the word assassination, he said “take him out” and, naturally that doesn’t exactly mean assassinate. It could mean kidnap or any number of other things.

Right Pat!

You probably don’t need to worry too much about spinning this one; the debate is probably in its last throes.

But I’ll give Pat the last word here. From his Monday broadcast: "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it…" (He’s right, he used a pronoun in assassination’s place. Whew, dodge the bullet on that one, didn’t you, Patty?)

CRASH, KICKING AND SCREAMING, SITH, LONGEST YARD Reviews

2005-06-27T15:02:00.000-05:00

Our local newspaper has a Friday column called "Everybody's aCritic." For one month, three readers are sent tickets to newreleases then they write a 150 word review. My name was drawn for this past month. It's hard to say much in 150 words but here are my contributions for May.

CRASH

Crash is about racial prejudice in America. Director Paul Haggisdoes an excellent job of portraying the huge number of characters by giving us just enough of a glimpse into their lives to sympathize with them while simultaneously seeing how their prejudices control them.

The strength of the film - its scope - is also its weakness. It attempts to show that racial prejudice goes in all directions. In trying to cover so much, it inevitably shortens and sometimes cheapens the story.

With a cast including Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, and BrendanFraser, it's surprising that the stand out performances come from lesser known actor Terrance Howard and hip-hop artist Ludacris. The scenes these two share are some of the most powerful.

With violence, language, and brief nudity, this is no family film.But if you want a thought provoking perspective of race relations in America, I highly recommend this movie.

KICKING AND SCREAMING

This is a movie about relationships. The father/son relationshipbetween Phil, (Will Ferrell), and his father, Buck (Robert Duvall), plays out like sibling rivalry. Phil is still learning how to be a father to his own son. Buck has issues with Mike Ditka – don't givethat too much thought. Actually, any analysis of this film is over analysis.

The plot pits Phil against Buck as coaches in the local youth soccerleague. Phil has never had the athletic drive of his father but sees this as a way to finally beat the old man. Most of the humor is derived from Phil's various stages of humiliation as he spins out ofcontrol with an unfamiliar competitive drive.

Predictably the plot leads to a sort of reconciliation, though we're not overwhelmed with the life lesson as is often the case with family comedies.

With many amusing moments, this is a fun film.

STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE SITH

Ah, Star Wars is back. It's back with its stunning special effects, cool aliens, fast moving battle scenes, emotional resonance, and great dialogue…

OK, scratch those last two.

But Star Wars is indeed back with the third and final installment ofLucas's prequel to his original trilogy. What can I say that hasn't been said?

It is the best of these last three. It is much darker and less humorous, though it does have some amusing moments. It is an appreciable close to the series. We get to see the emergence of Darth Vader, everyone's favorite villain, and the set up for the original Star Wars.

The acting – well, did I mention the great special effects? There are some really good actors in this movie, but only so much can be accomplished with Lucas's famously bad dialogue. This film, like the other five, is a fun ride and little else.

THE LONGEST YARD

Starring Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, and Burt Reynolds, this snore festgave me eyestrain from excessive rolling.

Think of every sports movie cliché. Now, combine that with every prison movie cliché. Mix in a bit of Hogan's Heroes and you've got The Longest Yard.

Now, I feel a little unqualified to comment on this movie as I never saw the original but I know a turkey when I see one and this past weekend I did. There are very few labored and predictable humorous moments in this alleged comedy.

The film is riddled with plastic moments of inspiration, usually highlighted by dramatic music and one or more characters walking in slow motion towards the camera.

It does have one bit of brilliance. A clever product placement device makes this film an almost 2 hour commercial for McDonalds.

Save your money. Wait for it to come out on cable.

What do Enron, Iraq, and the Social Security Administration have in common?

2005-04-21T12:25:00.000-05:00

Do you know why the Enron scandal happened? I’m going to oversimplify it but here it is. It happened because Enron was publicly held. Their stocks could be bought and sold on the stock market.

Here’s how I arrive at that conclusion. One of the best ways for stock brokers tell how strong or weak a company is is to look at their financial statements. A person that knows what she’s doing can, assuming that the financials are true, figure out how much growth the company experienced, what major assets they’ve bought and sold, how well they pay their bills and collect the money owed to them, how much the owners have invested, how profitable they are, how likely they are to continue to be profitable – well, let’s just say that there’s little you can’t tell about a company from accurate, complete financials. This is why companies issue long reports with their financials explaining every little nuance. They want investors to know why profits were down or the net worth of the company has fallen. They want to explain away each and every negative.

So, what does this have to do with the scandals? Well, I work at a publicly held company. I work in the accounts receivable department. Before the end of each quarter there’s a big push to collect as much money as possible so that our numbers will look better for that financial period. Ultimately my numbers will wind up on the financial statements issued to the SEC and published publicly. My company wants investors to feel confident in their progress so they put pressure on me to collect all the money I can. There’s nothing wrong with this, almost all publicly held companies do it. But it’s this kind of thinking that can be the first step down a long road to breaking some major laws. A company that becomes too obsessed with those quarter end numbers will cross the line at some point and begin hiding losses and exaggerating gains on their financial statement. Usually they expect to make these little white lies up on the next set of numbers but, when they don’t it can quickly snowball.

What’s my point? Stay with me, I do have one.

Now, when lying company gets tight with their auditors they don’t have to work so hard to hide the negatives because the auditors are the ones that are supposed to catch these improprieties. Once they’ve partnered up in their lie the skies the limit. That’s why Enron got so bad. I like to think of it as a papier-mâché skyscraper. A little financial lie, like a little papier-mâché creation, is easy to maintain and protect from breakage. But, the bigger it gets the more likely it is to break and crumble. By the time that Enron collapsed, their lie was like a huge 100 story papier-mâché skyscraper – brittle with no supporting structure on the inside. From the outside, on the financial reports everything looked fine. But it took very little to break it and make it crumble.

Now, let’s shift gears a little and look at another bunch of important people that got too caught up in reaching a stated goal.

It’s a familiar story about the weapons of mass destruction that failed to turn up in Iraq. Despite what the administration says now, we remember that this was the overriding factor in the latest Gulf War. They all believed it. After months of listening to one interpretation of the data coming out of Iraq, they all eventually came to that same conclusion. Saddam had WMDs and he must be stopped.

But theirs weren’t the only voices during those days. Go back and search for any newspaper articles with the name Hans Blix in them from any time during the six months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. He was the Chief UN weapons inspector and had scoured through Iraq looking for these things. Read those articles and you’ll find that he was saying over and over to anyone that would listen, “there are no weapons.”

At the time he might have been wrong or he might have been right. But he should have at least been listened to. He wasn’t and unfortunately, in a manner of speaking, he was right. Only one side of the story, the one that supported the administration’s goal of invading Iraq was heard by those in power. I’ve never known why, we probably never really will, but it seems obvious that they wanted, more than anything, to go in there.

What does one have to do with the other? I’m not just listing recent scandals here. These two incidents I think are clear cut reasons why any social security reform should not included privatizing social security.

The WMD story clearly shows that the government is as susceptible to the same flawed thinking that led to the fall of Enron. Until now the government and big business have been relatively separated, at least at the level that worries me. Going back to the Enron structure of reporting, the auditors check the financial statements which they’re supposedly certified to do in an honest and fair way. Then the numbers are given to the SEC and, because the SEC assumes the numbers are right since the auditors say so, they are published as gospel. When the auditors, in their role as representatives of the regulator of business in this country, were compromised, the whole system collapsed.

So, what happens when the regulator itself, the government, begins to take a vested interest in the success or at least in the reporting of successful businesses? This is what will happen when social security money begins to be tainted by the presence of big business. We know from the WMD fiasco that the government is susceptible to believing skewed data. How could we possibly believe that social security office won’t force the SEC to accept erred numbers from Microsoft, GM, Wal-Mart, or GE in the interest of keeping the stock market propped up? Just like the business owner that believes his erroneous numbers will be corrected in the next period, the government might decide to take the leap of faith with the business that they believe so strongly in and let them slide for a quarter, waiting until the next for the benefit. And so the snowball starts rolling.

Finger Food for Thought

2005-04-14T15:37:00.000-05:00

Have you been following the story about the woman that found a finger in her bowl of chili in Las Vegas? I swear this isn’t a joke. She went into her local Wendys restaurant - you know, Dave Thomas, adopt a kid and all that - ordered a bowl of chili from the Wendys menu, sat down, dipped her spoon in, and lifted out a finger.

Wendys launched an investigation. They followed the trail of that bowl of chili all the way back to the guy that harvested the beans and found nothing. Everyone involved has ten fingers and ten toes and swore that they left their human body part collections at home that day. This bowl of chili should have been like any other that they serve and, according to their conclusions, there will have to be no change to the Wendys nutritional information sheet, “May contain up to 10% of the following…”

Yeah right, you say. We love a David and Goliath story. I know I do. Anytime it’s the little person v. the big corporation, even if it’s one that seems relatively untarnished like Wendys, most people seem eager to agree with the little person. I mean, for pity’s sake, the corporation has a team of lawyers and accountants all working to protect its ass while the little person is just a little person. A hapless victim, shouting for mercy as the storm of corporate malice buffets her poor soul about.

So when I read the first installment of this story a few weeks ago I naturally sided with the patron. How could this be anything but the corporation’s fault? And I don’t care if they followed the line back. Fingers freeze and kids, who populate the kitchens of these places, play practical jokes. Is there beef in Wendys chili? I don’t know Wendys chili recipe. But if there is any meat there’s all sorts of ways that a finger could make its way from the meat packing industry to the bowl and there’s no way that they could have exhausted EVERY possibility.

Then the next installment came out. This lady, Anna Ayala, isn’t unfamiliar with this sort of affair. According to Ken Ritter with the Associated Press this isn’t the first time that she’s been in court, always as a complainant. In 1998 she dragged an ex-boss through the system on charges of sexual harassment and in 2000 she went after an auto dealership, claiming that the wheel fell off of the car that they’d sold her. The wheel suit was dismissed when she fired her lawyer claiming that he’d threatened her. She even has a history with restaurants. Last year she accepted money from El Pollo Loco restaurant, claiming that their food made her daughter sick. I wonder how many fingers her daughter is sporting these days.

OK, these are all terrible things and if they all really happened to this woman, my heart goes out to her. But talk about a string of bad luck! She really should hire a body guard because at the rate she’s going something really bad is going to happen. Again, that’s assuming that all of these things are true.

And to one degree or another, they might have. If you’re looking for trouble or a reason to sue, you’ll find it. Maybe her boss once asked her to collate some papers and she honestly thought that he said “I’d like to fondle you inappropriately.” Maybe the wheel on her car did fall off because she believed that the finance guy at the auto lot told her to make sure to loosen all of the lug nuts when he was actually saying that her payments would be due on the fifteenth starting in June.

It could happen.

But, I really don’t think so.

She’s a kook looking for a free meal.
Which brings us back to the finger in the chili - it’s been announced that she’s dropping the suit. Yes, the police investigation, which has included a search of her house and DNA testing, not to mention the publicity, has proven to be more than she can bear. This is according to her currently unfired Attorney, Jeff Janoff.

One more cryptic detail: A woman in Nevada lost her finger in a leopard attack recently. The lawyer wouldn’t comment.

World Health Organization worries about H2N2 virus causing influenza pandemic

2005-04-13T09:19:00.000-05:00

When Celeste starts to feel a flu coming on she tries to psyche it out. She repeats three times throughout the day, “I will not get sick.” Sometimes, after a few days of this healing practice she announces that she beat it. Most of the time after a few days I’m getting out the humidifier, heating up the chicken soup, stocking up on cough drops and Nyquil, and looking forward to my own round with the bug for we share everything.

Why do I tell you this? Well, it might be the only defense that many of us, myself included, have against a potential pandemic influenza virus that is threatening the world. Something stewed up in the poverty stricken villages of central China or in one of those nasties that we hear about coming from a chicken coop in Vietnam? No, this isn’t a new pestilence, the oft predicted avian flu pandemic; it’s one we’ve known about for at least 50 years, probably much longer.

Emma Ross with the AP reports that the World Health Organization (WHOops) announced that Meridian Bioscience Inc. near Cincinnati has shipped out strains of a previously isolated virus to almost 5000 labs. Most are in the US but many aren’t, vials were sent to eighteen countries altogether.

This strain caused epidemics for many years and the virus caused a pandemic in 1957 that killed 1 to 4 million people. Klaus Stohr, the WHOops influenza chief or the Big Sneeze, says that the decision was “unwise” and “unfortunate.”

Really?

If we’re familiar with this bug then why worry about it? Well, the vaccine hasn’t been included in flu shots since 1968. Anybody born later, like me, has no immunity whatsoever against it. And we know from the flu shot shortage last year that it takes time for inoculations to be prepared. I guess somebody decided in 1969 that enough’s enough and the bug had been defeated. Plus, they probably told themselves, nobody would be stupid enough to ship this out to 18 countries.

Rest assured, though. The folks that made the mistake are rushing to rectify it. They are working to destroy the vials and don’t expect that this will spread. Given their track record I’m certainly reassured.

My prediction? If no one gets sick, this small article on the last page of section A of our local paper will be the last I hear of this. If somebody does get sick, then we’ll worry about it. In the meantime it’d be better to spend time doing things like wringing our hands over Terri Schiavo or calling special Congressional hearings over steroid drug use among professional ball players than trying to do something to prevent this kind of mistake in the future.

If the word pandemic doesn’t make your blood run cold, if just for a second, either it already got you or you’re a politician worried about the latest public opinion polls.

It probably will blow over but in case it doesn’t, remember Celeste’s cure: “I will not get sick, I will not get sick, I will not…” It might be your only defense.

Depressing depression

2005-03-26T20:08:00.000-06:00

I’m feeling pretty down on myself lately. I know that I’m depressed – clinically that is. There’s really no question about that. I have good days and bad but the trend is increasingly downward. I’ve read the signs, the list of symptoms that the American Society of Psychologists, or whatever the proper name for that group is, and I must say, as modestly as possible, I scored quite high.

So, I sought help.

The only mental health facility in town that my insurance covers is a place called Community Counseling Center. After hesitating for months, I finally called them. I felt like crying when I did. I remember when I was a kid I was constantly getting an upset stomach. I threw up so often it’s a wonder that my esophagus wasn’t eaten away by stomach acid. Anyway, I remember bursting into tears every time I’d tell my mom that I was sick. I never knew why. I considered it from every angle but I just couldn’t make sense of it. But there it was. I cried when I told my mom that I was sick.

So when I called the seemingly annoyed receptionist and found myself having to tell her why I thought I needed to see a counselor, I thought that I was going to cry. I still don’t understand it. What, am I so full of my own self pity that I’m driven to tears by my condition?

Anyway, I set up an appointment. I forget her name at the moment but they set me up with a woman. I wouldn’t mention it, actually I was glad it was a woman, but the receptionist asked me if I was OK with a woman. It was strange, like it was a given that I’d be OK with a man but a woman? Well, we’d better clear that with him first.

Through all of this I never felt crazy or that I was being stigmatized as a lunatic. No, I felt like one of slimy, self-pitying heaps of disgust that regularly show up on Springer and Oprah talking about their feelings. I felt like trailer park entertainment. I felt like those stupid kids that have meetings where they talk about how each other made them feel on the Real World or in impact groups or in group counseling. Do you get the picture? I’ve never been able to quite put my finger on the feeling but it inspires me to shower in really hot water to wash the filth away.

Anyway, they gave me her name and set up an appointment. The first thing that I did was to search for her name on Yahoo. I wished that I hadn’t. I quickly learned that, politically, she was the polar opposite of me. A woman I can handle, but a Republican? Brrrrr!

Luckily I had a week to reconcile myself to this truth and I did. I imagined sessions with her where my political position would come out – “I don’t know, doc, I’ve just been really depressed since Kerry lost. It’s like I’m an outcast in my own country and the majority is hostile toward me” – at which point she would kick me out of her office. But I got over that. I have customers that are Christian conservative and occasionally send me emails dripping with Jesus’s blood. I simply delete them and move on. I’m sure that she’s a professional, I told myself, and she’ll do the same.

So, I showed up the first day. The receptionist was still annoyed and told me to sit down. I did and waited about 5 minutes to make sure that they weren’t getting the inevitable paperwork together for me and that they had actually forgotten about it before I went to the desk and asked. Caught in a mistake, she was suddenly very nice and accommodating. I filled out stacks of paperwork, most of it repetitive. When I finally finished, I still had to wait another 20 minutes or so.

Finally, with 15 minutes left before I had to go back to work, Madam Counselor decided to grace me with her presence. So, I started miffed at her. She had a large bandage on her neck with a hint of blood having seeped through. She apologized for it but didn’t explain it. It was very distracting.

So we got into it. I told her why I thought I needed help: mild depression and anger management. I was quick to tell her and, now, you, that I’m not a violent person. I internalize a lot and I know that it’s going to slowly kill me. People usually do a double take when I tell them that, at 32, I have hypertension. My diet isn’t perfect but I’m sure that this anger thing is a big part of it.

So we talked about that. I was quick to qualify every word that I used that I thought carried baggage. I explained that I didn’t want her to get the wrong impression, that I wanted to very clear and that it sometimes takes me bit to get my ideas across, especially when I speak. I had even considered writing her a letter before meeting her but that would have made me want to shower in especially hot water. She laughed and assumed an attitude reminiscent of a wise grandfather character from a Disney film. She gently explained, and took far too long to do it, that I wasn’t crazy. That wasn’t my concern, see above.

If her politics didn’t tip me off, which they didn’t, this should have. She wasn’t the one for me.

But I pressed on. I had to leave for work shortly after but we made an appointment to finish up in a couple of weeks.

She was late for the second session as well but we still had enough time to get through the initial interview. She concluded that my root problem is social anxiety disorder. She agreed that I have mild depression and could use some help dealing with my anger in a healthier way. But social anxiety disorder is the real problem. Now, she told me, she could put me in an anger management course and would take 6 – 8 sessions to work through but it would be very difficult for me. That seemed curious since she says that social blah blah blah is the real problem. But for that she wanted to give me drugs. I made it clear from the beginning that I didn’t want drugs. She made it appear that drugs are the only real answer.

I found a better answer in the exit door and with just a few steps I had removed one source of stress from my life. For now I will continue to seek therapy from Drs. Bushmill, Walker, and Guinness with occasional restive cures at Newcastle. This therapy had gotten me this far…

A nicer kind of rejection

2005-03-22T12:17:00.000-06:00

Well, I received my first personalized rejection in the mail yesterday. To date, I have only been getting form letters, most aren’t even signed.

What I received was a form letter, about five lines printed at the top of an 8/11 page. On the bottom the agent added a handwritten note that said while my idea is intriguing, my book is simply too short for her to try to promote. I’ve always known it is a little light, the final draft is only 46,000 words. The first draft was well over 100,000!

It’s a bit a quandary. The story is told. It doesn’t need to be longer. (She asked for 90-110K.)

On the other hand, it’s no quandary at all. If the question is “do I make it more salable or do I respect the piece,” I hope that I would choose to respect the piece. But if the question is “do I make it salable or respect the piece,” where respecting the piece leaves it unsalable, there doesn’t really seem to be much of a choice.

Don’t get me wrong, if I ever get to the point that I’m working with an editor I’m prepared to slash here and add there as they ask. What I’m talking about in the paragraph above is adding material that is, in fact, extra. I’d have to double the length of the book and that would mean adding a lot of unnecessary stuff to the central plot.

From the Depths

2005-02-02T11:56:00.000-06:00

Every now and then I think of my lonely little blog sitting out here in the nether regions of the web, neglected and almost forgotten by its creator. Does it have existential angst? I doubt it, but I do feel guilty for neglecting it. Fortunately, it’s patient and always waiting for me when I come back to it.

So, news from my life: I am still trying to get my book published. I finally decided to name it Macbeth’s Witch. Actually, this was Celeste’s suggestion and I liked it. So, I can’t get her to read the damn thing but at least she named it.

There was one agent that I really hoped would pick me up. Of the ten or so queries that I sent out, she was the only one to respond with a manuscript request. Actually she only requested the first 30 pages but I was really excited. I was sure that she would be blown away by my story and would snatch me right up. Instead, she rejected it. This is the perfect addition to an already horrible week. So, I did a bit of searching on the internet last night for a good writer’s conference where I might be able to impress an agent. I came across this article. It really got me to thinking. Basically, I am a completely forgettable person when you meet me. I am constantly being overwhelmed by doubt and self loathing and in social situations I look at my feet and mumble. People quickly lose interest and find somebody articulate with which to spend time. I’m not worth the effort for most. So, I’m in a roomful of writers, all exactly like me, and I think that some agent is going to be impressed with me? Not likely. My only hope is to gain some publishing credits THEN start querying agents again.

So, this morning I sent a query letter to a very small publishing company that is owned by my alma mater. I still live about 5 blocks from the school and one of their stated goals is to publish works by local writers. I think that I have a decent shot to get published by them.

And, I plan to set my novel length works aside and try to work on some short fiction until I hear back from the publisher. This way if I’m rejected I can quickly start trying for publication in magazines. It’s going to be a long, long road.

So, why was this a horrible week? Well, you know all of those little things about your job that really bother you? That little thing that your boss does from time to time that seems to serve no purpose but to remind you who’s the boss? Or that co-worker that really knows how to push your buttons? Or that stupid mistake that you made six months ago and you swore you would never repeat but you know that you will eventually? Now, imagine all of that coming down on you in one stinking Monday. That’s how my week started. I don’t live for the weekend anymore. I’m lucky if I can crawl to the end of the day intact.

Unmitigated praise, anyone?

2004-12-07T13:40:00.000-06:00

Ok, it’s been close to a month since my last post. Not that I am delusioned enough to believe that there is a breathless public clamouring for my thoughts, but there’s something about the widening gap between now and the last date posted that makes me feel obligated to say something.

Here’s what’s on my mind today: I choked.

Here’s what happened. I received this album about 6 weeks ago. I listened to it and I wrote what I thought was a fairly honest and sober review. Then I went to post it. A big thing about blogcritics is the revenue from Amazon. Each entry has at least one post to Amazon and each purchase that results from that linking counts towards blogcritics’s commission. When I went to post my review and list the link to the Amazon listing for this album there wasn’t one. So I emailed blogcritics owner, Eric Olsen. He said to hold off until the album was listed (it releases in January.)

Well, yesterday I got an email from the marketer for the album asking where my post was. I explained and suggested that he check with Eric. As it turns out this independently produced album may not get listed at Amazon. Eric told me to go ahead and list the review providing the artist’s web page as a place to buy the album.

In the flurry of emails about this issue, I noticed some from the artist himself. Now this buy has been at it awhile but he’s never made it big so his getting involved wasn’t that big of a deal in and of itself. It’s not like Bono was emailing me, eager for my review. But the thing that made me choke was that now I was sure that the artist was going to read my review. So, I promised to post my review and that should have been the end of it. Well, I went home and reconsidered the whole thing. I ended up writing the trite piece of cotton candy that you see through the link above.

I choked just because I knew that guy was going to read it and I didn’t want to be impolite!

Columbo and the Costumed Editor

2004-11-16T13:14:00.000-06:00

In posting my review for rearview, I realized that it has not only been a while since I posted anything, it’s been much longer since I actually posted something other than reviews. As I mentioned in my first post, I feel a little silly keeping this blog, like I’m a victim of unwarranted arrogance. But it is also nice to be flinging these bits of me out there. There’s no telling where they might land….

Anyway, a lot has happened since I last spoke of myself. Most importantly, I finished my novel. I want to read through it a couple of times before I start fishing for an agent but, aside from a few little rewrites, it’s done. It took me just over ten months.

Bush was re-elected. I promised myself that I wouldn’t make this a political blog though I have some very strong feelings about this matter. So, I’ll just say that it happened and it is obviously an event of significance.

This next bit of news is perhaps more interesting. I need to tell a little story to tell it. First I need to mention Vicky. She works with me here at Spartech Plastics and is, perhaps, the most enthusiastic person in my life regarding my book. She has also read more of it than anyone else. I have tried repeatedly to get Celeste to read it but she is just not interested. She says it’s good but… Anyway, Vicky loves to be involved in things. It really doesn’t matter what, just whatever is going on, you’re sure to find Vicky elbowing her way to the center of it. So, given this and her enthusiasm about my writing, you can bet that she is all about trying to find ways for me to get published or further my writing career. Most of what she suggests misses the mark as she knows less than I about the business of books and I know nothing. But in this case, I think that she did me a great service. You see, Vicky does not live in Cape Girardeau. Her address is Uniontown, Missouri. It is a tiny berg north of here with a population numbered somewhere in the hundreds. Her community life is centered in a slightly larger town, Perryville. Perryville is still a pretty small town – smaller than Cape. But it has a newspaper and Vicky knows the de facto editor quite well. See where this is going? So, Vicky throws an annual Halloween party with costumes, a bonfire, etc. She invited Celeste and I this year and told the editor, who always comes, about me. That it was a costume party was a great source of conversation and debate in our house. Celeste and I are not participants. We would both rather observe. But I knew that Vicky was selling me to the editor and I knew that she was a willing participant in the costumed silliness. I didn’t want to make a poor impression by showing up in my street clothes. So, I thought, I’ll buy one of those headpieces that make it look like you’ve been pierced by an arrow. After going to four stores and not finding one, I finally located one at Spencers for $17! I bought it. Then as I was leaving, looking at the thing and anticipating the headache it would cause, it occurred to me that for the same amount I could go to Goodwill and throw together a pretty good Columbo outfit. Plus this would give me an excuse to buy and smoke cigars all night long. That’s what I call a win-win situation. Celeste had her sons BDUs – that’s army clothes for those of you like me that have no idea what BDU might mean – so she went as a soldier. I returned the arrow. So, we showed up and got introduced to a bunch of people. Vicky didn’t let on who the editor was and nobody said, “Well, you’re Bryce, come over here and lets talk.” It was a couple of hours before she finally approached me and we started to talk. She asked about my book. I think that she thought it sounded kind of silly. Then she started asking about what else I’ve written. I told her that most of the rest of it was navel-gazing kind of stuff except for the reviews for blogcritics. She told me that she’s not interested in reviews. What she wanted was serialized fiction for adults. They had run a series for children that was a big hit and now she was looking for something for adults. She wondered if I might have a short story that could work. I knew that I didn’t but I promised her that I would look. We left it at that but I definitely had the feeling that she had hired me right there. I’m planning on starting a piece soon about a senior couple that decides to rob banks. That should be interesting and appealing to the audience of this small town paper and it should provide plenty of cliffhanger type spots.

Finally, my last bit of news, on Sunday the guy that runs blogcritics, Eric Olsen, said that he needed an editor for the site. I volunteered so now I’ll be an Book Review Editor for blogcritics.org.

All in all, things seem to be coming together for my writing career. It might still be a year or longer before I can leave the corporate world, but I’m making progress.

Music Review: rearviewmirror (Greatest Hits 1991-2003) - Pearl Jam

2004-11-16T10:25:00.000-06:00

Pearl Jam fans rejoice! After more than ten years, Eddie and the boys are releasing a greatest hits collection. While there are no new songs here, this is an important anthology chronicling the band’s eleven years following their first major album, Ten.
The songs are divided into two disks. The order of this collection is interesting. Disk one starts with “Once” from Ten and ends with “Save You” from Riot Act, their most recently released studio album, and follows the chronology implied. Then the second disk opens with “Black,” from Ten and more or less repeats the same sequential order. So, what was the criteria for this arrangement? If pressed one could call disk one the angry anthems and disk two the introspective songs. But, like everything with this band, it is really too hard to nail down and label.
Since the disks are individually chronological, one is treated to two fascinating studies of the band’s growth from the early, heady days when they helped carve a place for grunge to today. Presented this way, the listener is struck by the untraveled roads this band still takes that keeps it an interesting and relevant band when so many of its early contemporaries have fallen away. But that is not to say that this is a disjointed or jarring collection to listen to. Quite the contrary. Where many artist’s or band’s hits collected over a similar time period would produce an album with a dissembling sound, Pearl Jam has a consistency, even a constancy, that makes each recording uniquely theirs though they may experiment with greatly varied sounds and structures.
Finally, this collection presents their evolution from the burgeoning rock stars that led the charge of alternative and grunge music in the early nineties to the mature, more thoughtful, and yet no less experimental Pearl Jam of today. Where they stunned with their rebellion then, they mesmerize with their complexity and depth now.
While the hard core fan of this band may question this list of “greatest” hits, it would be hard to deny that this collection includes many of their best tunes. Fans, here’s another jewel for your collection. Casual admirers, this would be a perfect acquisition if you have considered adding a taste of Pearl Jam to your library.

Music Review: Putumayo's Blues Lounge

2004-10-27T17:56:00.000-05:00

This is the latest addition to Putumayo’s Lounge series. Preceding it were World Lounge, Euro Lounge and Sahara Lounge. Those familiar with the Putumayo label might find the premise for this collection a little unusual. But the mood and sound of the CD are not so far removed from their usual international collections that a fan of the label cannot take pleasure in it.

The first requirement to enjoy this disk is an appreciation or at least a tolerance for electronica. The idea behind Blues Lounge is a collection that uses, to varying degrees, blues samples. The overall collection is mellow and mesmerizing as the slow rhythms glide from one track to the next.

The pieces cover the spectrum of electronica interpretation. The most obvious and common to those familiar with the genre, are those tracks, such as the ones by Tangle Eye and Moby, that simply re-mix already existing blues pieces. While their work on these recordings provides an interesting frame for the original performance, it also acts to sanitize it. Gone is the gritty soul of the original and we are served a very pleasing but unchallenging song.

The other electronica extreme displayed here can be found in the tracks by Little Axe and Johnny Farmer. They feature entirely new recordings made specifically for these ultra-produced pieces. Again, while they are reminiscent of traditional blues, they seem to miss the heart of it.

Finally, right in the middle, we have tracks such as those by Mo’ Horizons and Organic Grooves. Their work features both live musicians and samples from old recordings.

The result is a very relaxing, even hypnotic, album. It can easily slip away from the listener’s conscience attention as the synthesizers and drum machine rhythms loll along. If you are a fan of electronica and are intrigued by a slightly different twist on the often frantic nature of that style, you will probably greatly enjoy this album. On the other hand, if you are a devotee of historic and more modern blues music, the collection here will likely disappoint.

Book Review: Unfit Commander by Glenn W. Smith

2004-10-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

OK, before I get to the book, did I mention why I actually started this blog? I wanted to be a contributor at Blogcritics.org. And now I am but one of the few requirements of membership is that I maintain a personal blog. So, I will be posting my reviews that I write for blogcritics here as well just to keep it going. And now, on to the review...

‘Tis the season for political punditry passing as books. In the ticker-tape tornado of tomes about the Texan, we now have Unfit Commander. Glenn W. Smith addresses the president's military record with the focus and intensity of a victim of OCD washing his hands for the fiftieth time. He admits a certain degree of narcissism when he says, “My own feelings about the issue are deeply personal.” The degree of relevancy of this perennial issue aside, it is unlikely that anyone that has been awake through this or the 2000 presidential campaign doubts that there is something questionable about George W. Bush’s appointment and subsequent performance in the Texas Air National Guard. But it is also apparent that, despite the fact that there are legitimate questions about his service, the voters are willing to overlook them both in Texas and in the nation as a whole.

The first chapter, and the only real writing done by Mr. Smith, is a long and rambling journey through Bush’s military past and his administration’s somewhat deconstructionist interpretation the documents related to it. He wanders in and out of his own narrative, reminding us that this is a right and good fight that he fights. He says, “the real reason for publishing Unfit Commander [is] because in the swirl of charge and counter charge, it is imperative that Americans not lose sight of the real question, which is, quite simply, How did George W. Bush choose to serve his country during the Vietnam era?” Chapter Two is entirely concerned with the White House press briefings relevant to the documents that have trickled down throughout 2004 regarding Bush’s military record. Finally, in Chapter Three, we are actually presented with the documents themselves. The reader can thumb through page after page of blurry and hard to read copies that chronicle, more or less, George’s brief and inglorious military career.

The facts are there. If it were not so before, this book makes it crystal clear that something was not completely fair about George W. Bush’s time in the military compared to that of any other young man of that time whose family was not rich and politically connected. But there is little to that. That is to say, this has been true throughout history and, fair or not, there is a degree of grudging acceptance of it by the voters. Nor is there anything new to the fact that the White House has tried to spin the story. There might have been a story here if the young George had turned down what was offered him then or if the White House now freely admitted that the obvious conclusions are also the right ones. All in all, though, Mr. Smith’s cry for truth is a weak one in the roaring whirlwind of spin and re-spin that crowds the shelves of the bookstores here at the end of this campaign season.