SQUATLO RANT

A SQUATLO STORY: NUMBER FIFTY-ONE "YOU DON'T HAVE A HAIR ON YOUR ASS IF YOU DON'T OPEN THIS DOOR AND COME OUTSIDE!"

2012-02-20T13:39:00.000-06:00

I've written before about the notorious Scrabble Wars my lovely wife and I have been waging since we first met in the late 80's, and I've even admitted that she kicks my ass the vast majority of the games we've played. We've even taken to marking an infamous ledger and looking at it now is further confirmation of the futility of my lack of prowess at the game. I've written a Squatlo Story about taking Scrabble with us on a trip to Costa Rica... we play a lot of Scrabble.

          But until now I've not told the story of how the game of Scrabble (and copious amounts of tequila) almost got yours truly hauled away in handcuffs one New Year's Eve a couple of years before we married...
          Picture the scene, if you will. It's about 6:30 in the afternoon/evening, and we're playing a quiet game of full-contact, take no prisoners Scrabble in the dining room of my two bedroom apartment in Nashville. We have Windham Hill "new age-y" instrumental music purring in the background, so as not to distract or annoy while we think. Conversation is, quite naturally, at a minimum, as we play.
           Suddenly, the neighbor next door starts pounding on the wall of my living room, letting us know we're making entirely too much noise for his tastes. We looked at each other in amazement. Could this guy be serious? I mean, we couldn't have been less noisy if we'd been practicing "Quiet Mouse" with mute children.
            I shrugged my shoulders and we continued our game. A few minutes later there was a very stern knock at the door, and when I opened it I was face to face with a Metro Nashville Police officer. Officer "Rick". He lived at the same apartment complex and was one of the resident security officers whenever a complaint was called in to the police department.
            "Can I help you, sir?" I asked. I'm very polite in my dealings with people who carry handcuffs and firearms, especially the ones who have a badge and the legal right to haul your butt away on a whim if you annoy them.
            "Yes. We've had a noise complaint? May I come in?" he said, looking past me toward my then-soon-to-be lovely (and dangerous) wife.
            "Sure, c'mon in." I said, thinking to myself "This must be some kind of mistake... noise?"
            Officer Rick came in and looked around the room, and I asked him if he thought our music was being played too loudly. He didn't. I told him we had had no way of knowing he was on his way, so we hadn't touched the volume control on the stereo. If it wasn't too loud now, it wasn't too loud when the asshole next door called in the complaint, right?
            Well, Officer Rick agreed, and said he'd go next door to talk to my grumpy new neighbor, and for us to carry on. Sorry for the intrusion. Have a good night.
            He stopped back by to tell us the guy next door was suffering from a migraine, and that as long as we kept the noise to a minimum we probably wouldn't hear another complaint from the man.
            We went back to our game, laughing at our "rowdy" Scrabble warning.

            Two weeks later, Cindy was visiting my apartment again and again we were engaged in a Scrabble game. The stereo might have been turned up a bit louder than the first time, but not by much, and only THEN because it was New Year's Eve and we were having margaritas. Lots of them. But still, I promise you, dear readers, the music was not at all unusually loud. And it was, again, very early in the evening on New Year's Eve.
            Just like before, there came a sudden knock on the living room wall. This time the pounding was severe enough to move artwork on my side of the wall...
             I looked at Cindy. She looked at me. I looked at my watch... it was not even seven PM, the music wasn't loud, and already we were being "warned" by some asshole to "hold it down"?
Oh, hell no...
            I walked over and pounded on the wall in response. Then I cranked up the Bose system to the threshold of pain for a few seconds just to give the sumbitch some idea of what "LOUD" really was. I may have put on a Roy Buchanon CD for effect... "My Baby Says She Gonna Leave Me" is a good one if you want to test the boundaries of sound and pain...

            That's when he pounded on the wall again. Big mistake.

            I went out the front door of my apartment, walked around the sidewalk to this guy's front door, and began to knock. Very politely. At least, it started politely. I could hear someone shuffling around on the other side of the peep hole, but no one opened the door.
            So I knocked again. And again. I stepped back and gave the guy's door a wee kick. Just a little tap. Nothing that would alarm anyone. Much.
            Cindy came over and urged me to come back inside, but by then testosterone and adrenaline were sloshing around with the tequila and knocking didn't seem to be quite the message I wanted to send, so I yelled at the door,
            "Come out here and talk to me, goddam it! You don't have a hair on your ass if you don't open this door and come outside!"

            I remember this quote exactly, because Officer Rick asked me point blank if that's what I had yelled at the guy's door as I was kicking it.
           Officer Rick wasn't nearly as nice as he'd been the first time he'd come to visit us a couple of weeks earlier. And he let me know right up front that if I interrupted him again (apparently I was determined to tell my side of the story while he was talking) he would arrest me. Then he asked Cindy if she was a legal resident of the complex, and when she said she lived in Murfreesboro he threatened to make her leave and go home. She told him she wasn't going anywhere unless he was driving, because we'd been drinking tequila.
            We were able to smooth over Officer Rick's ruffled feathers, and he went next door to offer apologies for my behavior. He came back to let me know that if I went to that man's door again and he had to come back to see me, I was going to be arrested for disturbing the peace.

             I never actually got a good look at this mystery man with the sensitive ears, because if I was outside he would run (literally) back inside his apartment and start dead-bolting the door. You'd have thought I was a troglodyte with a club from the way this man hid from my ass...
             I moved from that apartment a month later to join my wife in this house in the 'Boro, and never saw the guy again. But in my defense, I'd lived there for over six years and never had a complaint about music noise from any other neighbor during all those nights of revelry. It wasn't until THAT guy moved in next door that I had a problem. Well, that, and Cindy's influence. I blame it all on her. Never had the police at my door until SHE showed up with that damn Scrabble game...

            Yeah, don't mess with a rowdy Scrabble player. You never know what kind of trouble you're asking for...

TO MY SISTER KAREN (or Ellen, depending upon the reader's point of reference) ON HER BIRTHDAY (born the same day Ben Franklin flew his kite!)

2012-02-20T12:55:00.000-06:00

        Today is my sister's birthday. She's living in Florida now to escape the middle Tennessee weather (and to put some distance between us, I suspect) so I can't "drop in" and surprise her with gifts. Not that I was wont to do such a generous and kind-hearted thing if I could, but I'm just sayin'... I might. If she hadn't moved to the Sunshine State. So I can't.
         This is the same older sister who once asked me if I remembered her chasing me around our parents' house with a butcher knife when I was about five. I didn't, so she told me to forget she'd even brought it up... which gave me chills. If you forget being chased by a butcher knife wielding crazy teenager, what else have you forgotten?
         I do remember being lured onto a warm sleeping bag spread out in the sun on our front lawn, only to be rolled, wrapped, and tied up to squirm like a larva in a cocoon, even though the sun soon dipped behind clouds and those same clouds dumped a very heavy rainfall on my bound and tied ass.
        Our parents thought I was insane when I went crying to them when they came home later.

        Good times.

         Anyway, she's made it clear via email with my lovely (and dangerous) wife that she doesn't want anyone reminding her that she's older than dirt, or that the big thing to do in our little home town on the day she was born was to go down to the Pony Express station to watch the riders change horses on their way across the territory. She doesn't want to be reminded that the number one song on her birthday was written by John Philip Sousa. She's a little sensitive about references to fossils and Geritol, too, for some reason.
          I'd call, just to be contrary, but I can take a hint.
          So I've sent a card, which she would have gotten today if I'd remembered this was some sort of official national holiday that doesn't have mail delivery. And I've written an email saying everything EXCEPT Happy Birthday Karen in it.

          But here's the thing... none of YOU have been warned to ignore my sister Karen's birthday. None of you have gotten word, via a dangerously quick martial artist, to refrain from ageist jokes, cultural references, or the ilk.
           You folks are free to say whatever comes to mind. Like Happy Birthday Karen! Something I can't say, apparently.

           Feel free to express yourselves as I would given similar circumstances.
           Beej, you and Mooner can just address her as "Ellen" since that's somehow become her moniker during our correspondence. If you want, that is...
           Free comment space below, knock yourselves out. I'll pass the word you've left mail...

VIRGINIA HOUSE COMMITTEE ADVANCES BILL TO REQUIRE VAGINAL PROBE ULTRASOUNDS BEFORE ABORTIONS (and look for Tennessee's Republicans to up the ante...)

2012-02-20T10:00:00.001-06:00

I like medical diagrams. They help clear up the confusion most of us experience when we read descriptions of medical procedures. This one is pretty straightforward, don't you think?
According to an article on Think Progress, a House committee in Virginia has overwhelmingly passed a bill along that would require women in that state to undergo a vaginal probe ultrasound before they can have an abortion performed to terminate a pregnancy. The ultrasound isn't for any prescribed medical purpose, but is designed to put one more humiliating and intrusive obstacle between a woman and her own reproductive rights.

Obviously, the real purpose of this state sponsored rape is to help dissuade women from aborting unwanted pregnancies. Their theory must be that if a woman sees her little zygote in action, especially if she has to have a probe inserted into her vagina to produce the required image, she'll think twice about having the abortion. Don't Republicans in the Virginia House of Reprehensibles think women have already thought twice about terminating a pregnancy by the time they've gone to a doctor for an abortion? Is there someone somewhere who really thinks women take such a step in a completely cavalier manner?

One cable talking head doesn't understand why anyone would find such a procedure invasive or in any way objectionable. After all, CNN's Dana Loesch opines, what's the difference between the vaginal penetration that resulted in pregnancy and a medical vaginal probe performed by a total stranger designed to humiliate an already stressed woman? Here's the quote from the article:

LOESCH: That’s the big thing that progressives are trying to say, that it’s rape and so on and so forth. [...] There were individuals saying, “Oh what about the Virginia rape? The rapes that, the forced rapes of women who are pregnant?” What? Wait a minute, they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy.

Okay, first of all, some of those women who might want an abortion in Virginia just might be victims of rape. "They had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy." ???????????

Perhaps they did, Ms. Loesch. Perhaps they had a lot of problems when they were being raped. I've not been raped, but can imagine being a little upset by such a thing if it were to happen. And I don't think having a repetition of unwanted penetration would make me any happier with my decision, but thanks for asking. Bitch.

            But don't think for a minute Virginia's newest rightwing-nutter attempt to demonize abortion will be the last or worst of legislative horseshit to plop down on the path of progress. You can bet your last condom the state of Tennessee's House will find a way to top even the most radical of abominable bills any damn day now.
            I can see it now...

               "Tennessee House Committee passes bill to require 'The Rack' before abortion"

But that wouldn't be a severe enough deterrent to local Republicans, so they'd probably want to one-up the Virginia statute with a probe of their own. Maybe the "Pear of Anguish" would suffice?

           And it would help a lot if there were local clergy involved, taking notes and reporting back to their congregations on who was being "counseled" in such a manner...

            Here's what it must be like for those House members who are staying awake at night trying to come up with a headline grabbing procedure that will make them heroes to the conservatives to whom they pander:

          A woman voting for a Republican makes about as much sense as a gay black man voting for a Republican. There's nothing for them under that Big Tent of theirs, other than a seat in the back of the bus and a litany of disdain for anyone foolish enough to climb aboard.

FUNNIEST BLOG POST YOU'VE READ... TAKE THE LINK AND BECOME A DISCIPLE, TOO!

2012-02-20T09:06:00.000-06:00

        Every now and then I'll stumble across someone with a kindred sense of humor, and feel the need to share the wealth. Get thee to this site ASAP and read this current post:

http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/02/insane-clown-posse-drinking-game.html

       The blog is called "Stonekettle Station" and has this as a subtitle:
"Don't just embrace the crazy, sidle up next to it and lick its ear."

       Very fucking funny, I promise.

FORGET YOUR DVR... NEW DEVICE RECORDS EVERYTHING ON EVERY CHANNEL AND SAVES IT ALL FOR A WEEK

2012-02-20T08:52:00.000-06:00

       Those of you who haven't bitten the bullet and signed up for a digital video recorder (DVR) need to take the plunge. Television is a completely different animal when you can scoot through the annoying commercials, go back and rewatch games or movies at your leisure, or capture an episode of your favorite show by going on any computer on Earth and instructing your home unit to record it for you while you're out of town.
        The drawback to standard DVRs (other than the additional $10 to $15 a month the cable company charges for the service) is the limitations on their recording/playback abilities. For example, Comcast provides a DVR that is capable of recording any two shows simultaneously, but you have to watch one of them OR switch over and watch a recorded program while it captures the current TV fare. I've been told the Dish and Direct versions of DVR have more bells and whistles and can record three at a time... or let you watch a third show while the other two are recording.
         But there's a new beast on the market, and it will knock all the others off the shelves soon enough. Promise.TV has a PVR (Promiscuous Video Recorder) that can record EVERYTHING ON EVERY CHANNEL FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK, and then save all that material for another week while you catch up. No need to program anything, it sucks it all in, and you go back and choose what you want to save or watch later.
         If you go over to Boing Boing and click on the link, you can sign up for a half-price drawing on a new version of television carnivore. Kind of pricey, even at half off, but you know that price will drop as the technology is snarfed up and bootlegged throughout the industry.
         Pretty cool. (and I remember how miraculous it was when BetaMax came out...)

TRACY CHAPMAN'S "WOMAN'S WORK" MAKES ME WANNA HUG MY BABY AND MAKE HER SLOW DOWN...

2012-02-19T15:01:00.000-06:00

ZAPPA 'SPLAINS WHY MODERN MUSIC EXECS SUCK (and thus explains why our musical options are so limited)

2012-02-19T13:23:00.000-06:00

         Sometimes we really should listen to people like Frank, and actually consider what it was he was saying.
         "The person who is in the executive chair may not be the final arbitor of taste for the entire population."

         Gee, what a concept...

NOOT'S BILLIONAIRE BENEFACTOR DONATES ANOTHER $10 MILLION TO NOOT'S SUPER PAC (they have a very "open relationship")

2012-02-19T13:13:00.000-06:00

           Chris Wallace asked Noot on Fox News Sunday about the latest donation to Noot's Super PAC by billionaire Sheldon Adelson (who has given over $20 million to Noot's campaign so far), and Noot responded by saying Adelson is concerned about the survival of Israel, and that they (Noot and Mr. Moneybags) have a "very open relationship".

           Didn't ol' Noot ask his second wife for one of those so he could exchange bodily fluids with Callista?

           Maybe Mr. Adelson's wife is an understanding sort...

SWEDISH MAN SURVIVES TWO MONTHS IN SNOW COVERED CAR (my Bullshit Meter is off the charts for this one...)

2012-02-19T13:03:00.000-06:00

          According to a story on Huffington Post, doctors credit the "igloo effect" and a form of hybernation for the survival of a 45 year-old Umea, Sweden man who was found trapped in his car for two months under a mound of snow without food or water. Why am I so skeptical of this report? 'Cause it sounds like bullshit...
          The story says Peter Skyllberg was found huddled inside a thermal sleeping bag in the backseat of his stranded car by snowmobile riders who initially thought the car was a wreck. They dug down to a window and saw movement inside, and notified police.

          Okay, let's say the guy's biological processes slowed down due to the intense cold (-30 degrees) thus reducing his food and water intake needs. He'd still have to crap and piss occasionally, right? And then there's the limited oxygen problem one might expect in a sealed vehicle.

           On a semi-related note, I once dated (briefly) a waitress who had two small children. She rarely cleaned out the Happy Meal wrappers and other assorted crap she and those urchins tossed onto the floors and seats of her minivan, rendering it almost impossible to get in or out of that vehicle without losing five or ten pounds of trash whenever a door was opened. But as far as I know, at least they crapped in bathrooms, and not in the car.
          Still, I'm willing to bet Peter Skyllberg's car wasn't half as nasty as that woman's minivan. (When I was finally invited over to her house I was astounded to find she cleaned it even less often than her van. A haz-mat suit should have been offered at the door...)

SANTORUM ASSERTS PRE-NATAL TESTING ENCOURAGES ABORTION IN AMERICA (and blasts Obama's Affordable Care Act for providing free pre-natal care)

2012-02-19T11:50:00.000-06:00

         Mediaite has a story concerning comments GOP Presidential contender Rick Santorum made during an appearance on Face the Nation this morning in which he condemned President Obama's Affordable Care Act because it calls for free pre-natal care for pregnant women. Host Bob Schieffer asked The Frothy One about his assertion during a campaign speech that Obama's health care mandate was designed to encourage more abortions because it would require pre-natal testing.
          “I didn’t say prenatal care shouldn’t be covered. We’re talking about specifically prenatal testing and specifically amniocentesis, which is a… procedure that creates a risk of miscarriage when you have it and is done for the purposes of identifying maladies of a child in the womb, which in many cases, in fact, most cases, physicians recommend, particularly if there’s a problem, recommend abortion.”

           Santorum went on to add: "Pre-natal testing, amniocentesis, does in fact, does result, more often than not in this country, in abortion."

           Abortion is probably the one hot-button issue that most polarizes the American public, and Santorum's "never-under-any-circumstances" position on the subject is scary as hell to me. I understand basic concerns about the procedure, and can respect his Catholic faith's objection to abortion being a legal option for women in America. But to suggest that pre-natal care, particularly amneocentesis, is done solely to identify abnormal development in utero so that more abortions can be performed (thus saving the country money because there would be fewer disabled children born to society) is ridiculous.
            Santorum's rigid ideology takes over whenever the subject of abortion is even hinted at, and this is just another example of why women, more than any other demographic, should fear a Santorum presidency. Science is secondary in Santorum's world, always taking a backseat to whatever his faith commands, even when the health of women and children is at stake. On that basis alone his candidacy should be opposed.
              Here's a clip from a 2011 Meet the Press in which Santorum advocates the criminal prosecution of any doctor who performs an abortion, even one to terminate a pregnancy that results from a rape or incest:

          Of course, if abortionists are criminals, so are the women they serve. Santorum's not quite as clear on whether or not women should be held criminally liable if they have abortions...
          I guess in Santorum's version of America every zygote with Down Syndrome resulting from an incestuous rape would be offered the same protections as any other American citizen, and any woman or doctor who attempted to hook up for an abortion procedure would face imprisonment.
          Think the War on Drugs has resulted in prison over crowding? Wait until Rick's in the White House and the Big Houses are full of teenagers and their doctors...

HOUSTON POLICE BEING PRESSED TO CHARGE CONSERVATIVE RADIO HOST WITH HIT AND RUN (after initially ignoring evidence and witnesses' claims)

2012-02-18T12:40:00.000-06:00

         Okay, right up front I'm going to admit that I'm getting all of my info from one source, an article and video on Crooks and Liars, and that I have no idea if this is a story about police corruption or merely tardy justice. But the story is compelling on its face, so here goes.

          Witnesses say a local conservative talk show host left a gay bar in Houston recently (there is video evidence to confirm Michael Berry was leaving the bar just before the accident was reported to police) and backed into a car owned by the club's bouncer. The victim, Tuderian Bennett, called police and reported that Michael Berry had just struck his vehicle and fled the scene in his SUV, and gave the license plate of the perp's car. Various witnesses who claim to have seen the accident then told the responding police officers the same story.
           No charges were filed, but complaints from Bennett and others have forced the Houston prosecutor's office to press the Houston Hit and Run division to reopen the investigation. For his part, the radio host won't comment on the matter other than to say there are "two sides to every story" and that he is being unfairly targeted because of his political stances on the radio.
           Something tells me the fact that Berry is a former Houston City Council member might have something to do with the treatment he's receiving.

ROMNEY'S CAMPAIGN ATTACKS ON GM BAILOUT ARE PISSING OFF BLUE COLLAR WORKERS IN MICHIGAN (and the UAW is happy to remind them)

2012-02-18T12:22:00.000-06:00

      One of the strangest aspects of the never-ending GOP clown posse primary season has been the various candidates' disdain for the American auto worker. Wait... they aren't disdainful of ALL American auto workers, just the unionized ones.
       If you've listened to any of the stump speeches by these guys you've heard one consistent theme: the GM auto bailout was a mistake, an overreach by a Socialist President.
       Yet the facts show that as many as two million good, high paying American jobs were saved by that financial helping hand, and the money spent is being repaid in record time.   Auto workers, as well as those in various auto parts supply jobs would have been on the government dole for unemployment benefits, possibly facing foreclosures which would have deepened an already poisonous housing market in states like Michigan.   As it is, GM has rebounded and is now the number one automobile manufacturing giant on the planet, as stock prices have risen with favorable economic news in the auto industry.
        For people like Romney to continue to blast that bailout as wasteful expenditure of the taxpayers money is to ignore reality. And one reality Romney ignores is the very real fact that Michigan will be a battleground state in November's general election. He is damaging his own chances by sticking with his sad theme that the bailout was bad for America. Facts show otherwise, and he needs to revise his stump speech to the new reality.
         Here's a Crooks and Liars quote from an article by Kenneth Quinnell:


    Even prior to the emergency rescue loans, UAW members made deep sacrifices beginning in 2005 to save the company, giving up pay increases, overtime pay, holidays, agreeing to a reduced pay and benefit structure for new hires, and other concessions. President Obama demanded additional concessions and shared sacrifice from both labor and management in exchange for the loans.

In return, America's carmakers retooled to create the energy-efficient cars of the future and repaid their outstanding loans years ahead of schedule.

Rescuing the auto industry saved more than 1.4 million jobs up and down the supply chain.

DOCUMENTS LEAKED FROM "HEARTLAND INSTITUTE" SHOW PLANS TO INDOCTRINATE SCHOOLCHILDREN AGAINST TRUTH OF GLOBAL WARMING THEORIES

2012-02-17T14:59:00.000-06:00

          Back before the public was fully convinced by independent medical studies that cigarette smoking was harmful to humans, the corporations who profited from the sale of tobacco products sponsored hundreds of "studies" conducted by paid medical professionals whose sole purpose was to cast doubt on the truth about the dangers of their product. Years later it became obvious that the only scientists to conclude smoking was safe were scientists who had been paid to reach that conclusion. Mercenaries can be found to promote any proposition, no matter how bogus, if there is enough cash to call the tune.
          Today's Tennessean (motto: "That's right, it's not the Nashville Tennessean, asshole... just The Tennessean!") has an article concerning documents that were recently leaked from the Heartland Institute which detail efforts on the part of some very wealthy (and anonymous) donors to promote climate change deniers, websites, and in some cases, school materials. Among the leaked documents are some which show Heartland pays its global warming skeptics upwards of $300,000 a year, and paid an Energy Department consultant $100,000 to design a curriculum to counter mainstream scientific school materials concerning man-made global warming.
          The article says Heartland raised more than $2 million from insurance companies (WTF?), another half million from tobacco producers (again, WTF?), and raked in a $14 million donation from one anonymous individual. (think things go better with Koch?)
          When that kind of money is in play, you can buy any kind of results and spokespeople your crank cause might need. Obviously, keeping doubt in the public's mind about man-made climate change is in the best interests of those who currently profit from doing business as usual, regardless of the outcome for mankind or the planet itself.
           Think back to those television and magazine ads for cigarettes in the Sixties when everything was designed to make smoking "cool" or sophisticated. I'm not sure how you sell pollution and rising sea levels to the next generation, but if you give me a few million to work on an ad campaign I can probably come up with something "cool" and sophisticated to show for your cash.
           Why do you think it is that one side of the political chasm sees global climate change as the primary threat to man's survival, while the other side sees it as a threat to their global conglomerates and profit margins? Could it be that one party's sole purpose is to promote and protect the interests of the wealthiest among us, while the other occasionally does right by the majority?
            Can you name a liberal or progressive think tank that pays millions of dollars to disseminate false information and bogus science to promote their theories? Can you think of a financial windfall angle for those who would warn of an impending ecological disaster?
            On the other hand, can you think of the financial damage honest scientific fact could bring to those who are heavily invested in fossil fuels, combustion engines, and pollution belching factories?
             That explains the difference between facts and propaganda, liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans.

"NO ONE IS HUNGRY AT MY COUNTRY CLUB..." (Republican Party Chairman of Tennessee's wealthiest county bitches about free school breakfasts)

2012-02-17T09:36:00.000-06:00

            "There is no hunger in America."
            I heard this from my right wing brother-in-law just before one of our annual holiday political "discussions" several years ago... I would elaborate on our "discussions", but I love the guy despite our political differences and don't want to poison future family gatherings with this post. Suffice it to say, his is not a unique opinion in conservative circles. In fact, I would venture to say most conservatives feel the issue of hunger in America is purely a liberal contrivance designed to confiscate their money for the benefit of lazy minority leeches. It's chapter one in the Republican Book of Reagan, "I, Me, Mine: I Got Mine, Get Yours, Mother Fucker!"
             Today's driveway offering from the folks at the Nashville Tennessean (motto: "We've not called this newspaper the Nashville Tennessean in almost twenty years... It's The Tennessean.")  has a front page article concerning a letter written by the Chairman of the Williamson County Republican Party and posted on their website in which Kevin Kookogey complains that our schools don't have an obligation to feed under-privileged children:

             “I am sure you have heard about this happening in other areas, but ladies and gentlemen, Williamson County, one of the wealthiest counties in the nation by any measure, is now operating under a perverse incentive to increase the number of students taking government hand-outs,” Kookogey wrote. “Of course, those handouts are courtesy of you and me, the federal taxpayers.”

              Kookogey's right about this, of course. Our public schools and the federal Department of Education are under no obligation to feed people, and any effort to do so is clearly an entitlement program not specified by our nation's Constitution.
              But studies have shown that hungry children are less likely to focus on schoolwork, and since a rising percentage of students nationwide live at or below poverty levels it has been determined that providing free or reduced cost meals to those in need is a cost effective expenditure. A fed student is a better student; better students are more likely to learn and graduate; an educated populace leads to a more productive populace; graduates are less likely to enjoy the fruits of our penal system than those hungry kids who drop out to sell drugs and steal Mr. Kookogey's golf clubs for Happy Meal money.
              Heavy sigh...
              Here's what prompted me to sit down for this little rant: Williamson County, Tennessee has one of the highest per capita income levels in America. It is without question the richest county in Tennessee. Mega-mansions are as common as zits on a hungry teenager in Franklin and Brentwood.   But just because the county is home to a great many very (!) prosperous people doesn't mean there aren't people in need living in the mansions' shadows.
               According to the article, more than 5% of the school-aged kids in the county and nearly 15% of students in the Franlin Special Schools District were living in poverty in 2010. In other words, out of any group of 100 students in Williamson County, between 5 and 15 of them are probably coming to school on empty stomachs. And they're sitting side by side with kids whose parents dropped them off at school from behind the wheels of Cadillacs.
               Of course, most of the wealthier kids don't darken the doors of our public schools. I doubt seriously that Mr. Kookogey's kids, if he's spawned, attend school with the kind of riff raff he's bitching about... Those kids are hauled to and from very tony private schools by their parent's chauffeurs, and you can bet your sweet Cheerios they're fed and watered before they leave the gated communities they call home.
               Finding a way to tighten the grip on every penny seems to be a fixation for Republicans, especially those who have the most pennies to spare.

PREPARING FOR THE INVASION OF TERRORISTS, MURFREESBORO'S FINEST ARE ARMED TO THE TEETH!

2012-02-16T12:22:00.000-06:00

           There's an article in the current issue of the weekly Nashville Scene by Jonathan Meador detailing the on-going exploits of our local police forces as they prepare for the inevitable terrorist attacks bound to strike in sleepy Murfreesboro. The article centers around complaints filed by rural residents who are being "terrorized" by the sound of heavy munitions being fired adjacent to their farms and properties out in the country, as law enforcement personnel play with their newest and bestest toys. Boys will be boys, and if it's loud and powerful, they have at least one of them in their arsenal.
            Rutherford County Sheriff's Department's Felony Arrest Search Tactical (FAST) team is one of the units that has reportedly been "practicing" on a patch of land out on Hwy. 41 south of town, and some of the neighbors in that area of the county have been annoyed enough by the daylong fusillades to complain about the noise. The Scene reports that the Sheriff's Department has been joined by the Murfreesboro City Police Department on some occasions, turning the peaceful sounds of rural middle Tennessee into something akin to a war zone for local residents.
            The article details some of the equipment these local law enforcement departments have requisitioned, including M-4 assault rifles and armored personnel carrier through grants provided by the Department of Homeland Security (your tax dollars at work). It's not known whether or not they actually took possession of an armored personnel carrier, but the fact that they wanted one ought to be telling. The report says that a .50 caliber weapon was donated to the Sheriff's Department by the locally manufactured Barrett firearms company, but that it was later returned.
            A representative from FAST was asked to explain why sleepy little Rutherford County (population 262K) would need such an arsenal, and Sgt. Chris Kauffman explained that the department needed to be prepared for biochemical terrorist attacks or "events like the Madrid train bombings".
            I can see it now... Muslim jihadists from the local Islamic Center storm in and take hostages at Hooters on Broad Street, leading to a days-long standoff with Murfreesboro's SWAT and FAST teams. Barney Fife needs to be kept up to speed on the latest weaponry, just in case.

           Film at eleven...

ARE YOU THE WORST NEIGHBOR IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD? OR IS THERE SOMEONE "SPECIAL" RIGHT NEXT DOOR?...

2012-02-16T10:36:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I was poking around over on Mooner's blog and read a comment by one of his loyal disciples in which this guy claimed to known as "asshole" by most of his neighbors. That inspired me to confess to having been the neighborhood "asshole" in a previous life, and made me wonder if most of us don't have stories from our pasts that might paint us in a less than favorable light.

For example, I once lived in a very modest little subdivision with my modest little family, and in those days I wasn't as "lawn conscious" as I am now. At the time, crawling around on my hands and knees plucking thistles and dandelions didn't rank way up there on my list of priorities... I think working nights had a lot to do with my lawn care attitudes, actually. When you have small children living at home and work when they're sleeping, you don't get much rest during the day when they're bouncing all over the house doing what kids do. Because I was sleep deprived for the entire two years we lived in that house, I didn't spend a lot of my time out weeding.

One of my neighbors was a retired old fart who did nothing BUT work on his lawn. Every blade of grass was trimmed with the care a good stylist would employ on a wealthy woman's hair. He and his wife (The Biddy, as I called her) would spend hours of every day stooped over in some manner of lawn maintenance, weeding flower beds, tending to their immaculate gardens, trimming rose bushes, putting mulch around flowers, and decorating their porch with hanging baskets and flower pots. In short, their lawn was something fit for the cover of Lawn and Gardens.

Our lawn, on the other hand, looked a lot like Hal and Lois' lawn on the show "Malcolm in the Middle"... we had patches of barren, grass-less dirt everywhere, no flowers to speak of, and a lot of dandelions and thistles poking up everywhere between the discarded kids' toys. Our lawn was the blight of the neighborhood. It actually looked better when I neglected the mowing for a couple of weeks... it sort of filled in the blank spots from the road if the grass was overgrown. Heavy sigh...

           Anyway, Mr. Lawn and Gardens and his wife hated my guts. My dandelions were like a cancer threatening to spread over to his lawn at any moment, and so he made quite a show of crawling around on our property line border plucking them up by the root and then tossing them back into my yard. He made sure I saw this operation on multiple occasions, and I have to admit I found it amusing as hell. I'd wait until he was done, then take my mower down the property line with the exhaust chute pointed back into his yard, sending the same dandelion and thistle pluckings right back onto his lawn. Good times.
           At some point one of my neighbors must have been privy to a conversation with this guy and heard his complaints about my sloppy lawn, and in an effort to make me sound slightly less asshole-ish pointed out that I DID work nights and was usually exhausted during daylight hours. All that did was inspire this asshole to mow his lawn just outside our bedroom window VERY early on Saturday mornings. As soon as the dawn arrived this guy would fire up a mower and take it up and down the property line just beneath our bedroom window. Like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, "No sleep for you!"

            One particular morning this Briggs and Straton alarm clock triggered a "kill him" response in my weary ass, and had it not been for the fact that my kids would have seen me drug away in handcuffs I would have gone next door for a "conversation". Instead, I waited until that night after work to do a little lawn maintenance of my own.
             I arrived home at 12:30 AM, went straight to the refrigerator for a couple of cold beers, then went out to the garage for my little 22" Toro push mower. I filled up the tank, rolled it right out beneath HIS bedroom window (on my side of the property line, mind you), fired it up (they always start on the first pull, those Toros!) revved it up as fast as it would run, then left it there and went back into the house for more beer.
            I watched through the window as all of the lights came on in his house. He came outside in his pajamas. His wife followed him out on the front porch clutching a housecoat around her like she was a refugee in the snow. They were pointing and talking, shaking their heads.
            I don't know if he called the police or not, but no one came over to discuss the noise with us. Eventually the Toro ran out of gas. My own wife at that time was about as pissed as the neighbors, but knew better than to turn off the mower once I'd started it. A pissing match is a horrible thing for all involved, I told her. Everyone gets wet.

            If you have a "neighbor" story, or better yet, if YOU'RE the neighbor, leave a comment!

GETTING DIRECTIONS OFF THE STREET (does this sound familiar to anyone else?)

2012-02-15T13:51:00.000-06:00

Found this video clip on Boing Boing...

Okay, a confession. About twenty-five years ago I took a friend of mine to Fall Creek Falls State Park here in middle Tennessee. FCF is by far our nicest state park, featuring the highest waterfall east of the Mississippi River (250 feet, and it looks a lot higher than that if you're sliding backward in icy cold water toward the top of the falls... trust me!) Anyway, my friend and I were on a road trip for the day, and along the way we imbibed in some serious efforts at brain cell destruction, one doob at a time. Needless to say, by the time we found our way to the park we were significantly altered individuals, not fit for public.

Fall Creek Falls

             After touring the park for a few hours, we decided to head on back home to our apartment complex in Nashville, but somehow left the park heading the wrong direction (like I said, we were buzzin'...). Evening was approaching and the sky was beginning to darken, which can be a problem on some of those windy mountain roads when you're sufficiently impaired, so we stopped a guy who was walking along the road and I asked him "Tell me where are you going?" and this he told me. Wait... those are lyrics from Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock"... pretty sure this guy wasn't Joni.
            In fact, the guy we pulled over to ask for directions was a twenty-something year old wearing a suit and tie, despite mid-summer temps. That should have been a clue... I pulled the car off the road next to the fellow and my buddy rolled down the passenger side window to ask for directions. That's when I saw that he was carrying a Bible in his hands. Uh-oh...
            "Excuse me... can you tell us how to get back to I-40 from here?" my buddy asked.
            What followed was a lengthy set of directions much much much much more confusing than those given by the little girl in the video above this post. In fact, the guy we had stopped had a severe speech impediment, along with some mental disabilities of unknown cause. He was almost impossible to understand, but that didn't stop him from trying, hard, to tell us how to find civilization again. He motioned this way and that with his free hand, pointing and gesturing like a guy directing traffic at a busy intersection.
             Anyone who's ever been blitzed from a long day of "inhaling" can tell you that sometimes it doesn't take much to set off a giggle fit. Within about ten seconds of this guy's opening salvo of directions I was having spasms trying to contain myself, while my buddy kept nodding his head as if he knew exactly what the fuck this young man was trying to tell us. Obviously, he didn't understand any better than I, but being a kind-hearted and sensitive fellow he did his best to ignore me and at least pretend to be listening. Meanwhile, I was losing it on my side of the car.
              Finally, after about two minutes of well-intentioned noise my friend shook the man's hand and motioned for me to drive. I was having way too much fun by that time, so I asked the guy if he'd mind repeating those directions for my friend, just one more time to make sure he had it.
              I felt bad about it later, but at the time I don't think I've ever come so close to busting a gut in my life.

              Thank God for GPS and TomTom.

LOCAL SHERIFF HIRES ISLAMOPHOBIC ORGANIZATION TO "TRAIN" HIS OFFICERS ABOUT LOCAL MUSLIMS (perhaps the KKK wasn't available?)

2012-02-15T11:33:00.001-06:00

            My hard-earned tax dollars at work... Our local sheriff here in Murfreesboro, Tennessee has accepted an Arlington, Virginia hate group's invitation to allow them to "train" our law enforcement officers on "the threat to America" posed by Muslims and Islamic Centers such as the controversial mosque being constructed less than a mile from my house. A local Christian mega-church, whose pastor Rev. G. Allen Jackson spoke against the new mosque during court proceedings, has graciously offered their facilities to host the training sessions, because "...I would submit to you that we have a duty here at home to understand thoroughly the nature, the intent, the funding of any group that is being invited into our community under that general banner (of Islam)...".

             I guess if the Civil Rights movement of the 60's were taking place today our local authorities would turn to the KKK for educational guidance. We're so fucking proud...

             An article in this morning's Nashville Tennessean (motto: "Helping Tennesseans housebreak puppies since 1907!") says the sheriff's office has hired ex-FBI agent John Guandolo, VP of a group called Strategic Engagement Group, to train Rutherford County's finest. SEG has a stated position that mosques and Islamic centers are "potential military compounds", and Guandolo was recently quoted as having said of them "They do not have a first amendment right to do anything."
             The three day "training" session (which concludes today) is being held at the World Outreach Church here in Murfreesboro, which recently hosted an event called "The Threat to America" which was sponsored by a group called Tennessee Freedom Coalition. The article says THAT group is led by Lou Ann Zelanik, who ran and lost in her bid for a seat in the state House of Reprehensibles on an anti-mosque platform, and little else. During last summer's heated mosque controversy here in Murfreesboro Ms. Zelanik tried in vain to make her Islamaphobic positions central to the campaign, and lost badly in the process. She's a real piece of work...
             The local rag here in Murfreesboro has a quote from Saleh Sbenaty, a member of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro:
“I was completely taken by shock when I heard the news last night about this training by a private organization that is brought by a small number of radical members of the community,” said Sbenaty, who has served as a spokesman for the local Muslim community throughout the controversy. “Deputies are paid by our tax dollars and they are being trained on a mission of hate that this group has brought from outside Tennessee.

           The mosque controversy here in Murfreesboro brought unfavorable national attention to our community, and many of us participated in tolerance rallies meant to counter the bigotry being spouted by a noisy minority of local residents. Now our sheriff's department is using our tax dollars to enrich the same hate groups who are fomenting this kind of horseshit nationwide, under the guise of "training" a law enforcement agency that is supposed to represent and protect all of Rutherford County's residents... not just the lunatic fringe.
            The sheriff seems a little surprised his department's training methods are being questioned, saying " There are not many classes out there for anything when it comes to Muslims... but this training isn't just about that, it has many other components to it... My stance is and office's stance is we are here to protect the people of this county, and I am never going to waiver from that."
             Suddenly I can hear fifes and drums in the distance...
            Sheriff Arnold went on to explain that training like this evolves over time, likening it to advances made in CPR training over the decades:
“This is kind of like CPR,” he explained. “It took 20 years to perfect CPR. When we first started doing it, we weren’t’ doing it correctly ... but at least we were doing something. And over time we got to where we are today with CPR. I’d say we are saving a whole lot more people today than we were when we first started training people in CPR because we’ve learned all this stuff over time, and to learn stuff over time you have to start the learning at some point.”

              Yeah, paying folks who profit from prejudice to come into your town, putting their little seminar up at one of the largest churches in the area so they can spout their hate rhetoric to officers who are being paid to attend those sessions is just like rudimentary CPR training... except that it isn't.

             If tolerance seminars had been conducted by the Sheriff's Department to help his deputies understand the Civil Rights movement, I guess they would have started with cross construction and the application of flammable liquids.

*********UPDATE**************UPDATE*********************UPDATE*************

             I just got a call from Sheriff Arnold returning my voice mail message concerning this matter, and he had a few clarifications I'd like to pass along.
             First of all, he insists my tax dollars aren't being spent to fund this right wing organization's Islamaphobic training sessions, but that the thing is funded by that organization itself. He also said the Strategic Engagement Group was recommended to the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department by the FBI, and when asked for a specific name within the FBI to whom I could address my concerns, I was told it was done by recommendation of the FBI's Springfield office in Murray County. (get back to you on that as things unfold...)

             Sheriff Arnold was quick to say that he wasn't taking sides on the mosque issue, despite media attempts to vilify him or the department. I expressed my concerns that simply by having his employees attend a seminar hosted by a group that uses, in my opinion, hate speech, he was giving tacit approval to their message and opinions on the matter. I conveyed my Civil Rights/KKK analogy and told him I thought we would be embarrassed years from now by giving voice to intolerant points of view concerning Muslims in our community. (for what it's worth, I'm not sure he got my analogy at all... probably having more to do with my lousy communication skills than to his understanding of the comparison)
               I asked if he had had a lot of feedback from the public, and he said so far there had been two complaints about the seminar as opposed to more than twenty calls in favor of it. Apparently, the folks who are offended by this are greatly outnumbered by those who think Muslims with scimitars are building bombs in their basements and planning to put our women under burkas... Who knows?
              In short, the guy was straight up about it, and honestly interested in hearing what I had to say. At least I wasn't told to go fuck myself or something...

NEWARK MAYOR CORY BOOKER RESPONDS TO N.J. GOVERNOR'S IDEA OF PUTTING MARRIAGE EQUALITY UP FOR A VOTE (and he blasts such a cowardly suggestion)

2012-02-14T15:58:00.000-06:00

        If you've seen Newark Mayor Cory Booker on Bill Maher's Real Time or heard him interviewed on cable news you already know the man is a bright rising star in Democratic politics. Each and every time I've had the chance to see and listen to Booker I've come away impressed by his ability to communicate his thoughts in a way that connects with people, even on contentious issues.
        Recently the state legislature in New Jersey passed a marriage equality bill that would legalize same-sex marriages in that state, over the threatened veto of Governor Chris Christie, the darling of the Republican Party. Governor Christie has suggested that perhaps the good people of New Jersey should have the option of voting up or down on the issue, ala Proposition 8 in California (which was recently deemed unconstitutional by a committee of the 9th Circuit Court).
         Mayor Booker was asked about his opinion on letting voters have a say in the marriage equality law, and here's what he had to say:

"Dear God, we should not be putting civil rights issues to a popular vote to be subject to the sentiments, the passions of the day. No minority should have their rights subject to the passions and sentiments of the majority. This is a fundamental bedrock of what our nation stands for."

            Only a politician who wants to cover his own ass would suggest that a Civil Rights issue be decided by the whims of the majority of eligible voters who show up at the polls. There comes a time to do what's right by the people, and to do so in a fundamentally honest and conscientious way, regardless of the political consequences. Apparently Chris Christie's balls draw up when he has to consider signing or vetoing a marriage equality act into law in New Jersey, but from the sound of this video clip Mayor Booker wouldn't have such reservations.
             I hope this man runs for higher office someday, and that I get the opportunity to cast a vote for him. When I look across the country for progressives who have national appeal, Booker is the brightest light I see.

BILL BEFORE TENNESSEE LEGISLATURE WOULD REQUIRE FEDS TO TIP OFF LOCALS BEFORE MAKING ARRESTS IN STATE

2012-02-14T09:25:00.000-06:00

           Instead of processing last night's basketball photos like I'm paid to do, I have to tell you about the latest hair brained idea hatched in our state general assembly.

           The Republican majority in the state legislature can't stand the thought of an overreaching federal government coming into Tennessee and making arrests on the basis of mere federal laws, especially if they aren't going to let the good ol' boys know they're coming. Why, that would be downright presumptuous on the part of the U.S. Justice Department... After all, if someone down here is messin' up, we'll handle it. Y'all can keep your asses up in Washington, thank you very much!
           State Rep. Bill Dunn (R) has introduced a bill (HB2610) requiring the federal government to notify local law enforcement agencies in Tennessee before making arrests within the state's borders, because "there comes a point where we've got to put a little bit of pressure on the feds and stand up for our own citizens".
           Recently the federal government conducted a raid on the Gibson Guitar Corporation factory here in Nashville, claiming that illegally imported ebony wood was being used to create musical instruments for Nashville's recording artists. Operations were halted at the plant, wood was confiscated, and a lot of hell was raised by local folks who couldn't give a shit less about whether or not certain trees are endangered in some god forsaken rain forest somewhere. After all, if Taylor Swift needs a new fiddle for her band, by God, get out the chain saws.
           According to the idiots who are behind this proposed new law, the feds would have to notify state agencies that they intend to enter the state for the purpose of making an arrest. Local officials would then check with the state attorney general to find out if that federal intent would violate state law. The legislature could declare federal laws to be unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable in Tennessee, and thus federal agents could be charged with felonies such as kidnapping for arresting someone "illegally" within the state's borders.
           The Legislature has recently declared two federal laws "unconstitutional" in Tennessee (passing the Health Care Freedom Act and the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act) designed to keep "Obamacare" and federal gun laws from pestering the good folks of the Volunteer State.
            So if the feds want to come into Tennessee to arrest a corrupt public official (take your pick) that official would probably have a lot of time to get ready for his perp walk, since his buddies at the state level would have to be notified in advance.

            Can't you just see a local county sheriff placing DEA or FBI agents under arrest for daring to bring warrants from D.C. to Hooterville?
            Like I keep saying... no one can "out-stupid" our state legislators!

GREAT PARODY OF "FIVE FOLKS ON ONE GUITAR" VIDEO (if you saw the original, you'll LOVE this one!)

2012-02-13T11:57:00.000-06:00

A while back I posted a music video by a cover band called Walk Off the Earth featuring five people playing one guitar on a Gotye cover song. This is a response video, and it's just as good as the original.

WANNA POST A REBELLIOUS RANT ON FACEBOOK ABOUT YOUR PARENTS? BETTER HOPE DAD ISN'T IN CHARGE OF UPGRADING YOUR LAPTOP LATER...

2012-02-13T11:42:00.000-06:00

       Ah, how this takes me back... My own lovely daughter went through a rebellious stage that pushed me to the edge of insanity, but I don't think I ever resorted to gunfire to get her attention (although I did spray her down with a water hose one day when she made the mistake of bringing an argument to the driveway where I was washing my car... Good Times!)

       The dad in this homemade vid has some serious anger issues, but I'm thinking his teenaged daughter has a lot to do with his short fuse. God knows, I wouldn't wish a teenaged girl on anyone... They have yet to invent a nerve pill up to that challenge.

       Hannah, whoever you are, I hope you live to see the day when this all seems funny in hindsight...

USING A PARTICLE ACCELERATOR TO CREATE FRACTAL ART

2012-02-13T11:08:00.000-06:00

Todd Johnson rents out an industrial particle accelerator to create beautiful images in acrylic, and the results are amazing. Using multimillion volt charges into acrylic, and then tapping the charged acrylic surface with a sharp object causes the fracturing you see in the video and in the images below. Found this over on BoingBoing.

WATCHING WOMEN WATCHING "DOWNTON ABBEY" IS FUNNY AS HELL...

2012-02-13T08:45:00.000-06:00

        I have no idea what "Downton Abbey" is or why it's popular among so many women, but I love this little home video of women watching the show together while drinking wine. I can see how this kind of gathering could become habit forming, whether the show is good or not...

        I suspect this program is a lot like the type of movie Eddie Izzard pokes fun of in this clip...

NEWS OF KIDNEY FAILURE EPIDEMIC AMONG SUGAR CANE GROWERS SHOULD HAVE OUR ATTENTION

2012-02-13T08:13:00.000-06:00

         I found a blurb on Huffington Post about an epidemic of chronic kidney failure that is sweeping through sugar cane harvesting areas of Central America and was stunned to learn that tens of thousands of sugar cane workers have died of the disease. Scientists and doctors disagree on the cause of the deaths and illnesses, with some pointing to pesticides and chemicals related to sugar cane farming, while others insist it has more to do with improper hydration by workers toiling in extreme heat day after day, year after year.
         After seeing the film "Contagion" (thanks, BJ!) and having read "The Hot Zone" (still the scariest book I've ever read, bar none) I'm tuned into the threat of pandemics, especially one that might be brewing just south of our border. But all indications point to environmental factors and not to contagion for the spread of these illnesses. Thousands of workers in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica, and other sugar cane producing countries have become ill and died from kidney disease, with abnormally high levels of creatine reported in villagers as far north as the Pacific coast of Mexico.
         In the town of Chichigalpa, Nicaragua, one in four men have symptoms of kidney disease, and 24,000 deaths in Nicaragua and El Salvador alone since 2000 are blamed on kidney failure.

Some doctors insist that agricultural chemicals are not a contributing factor, citing long work days in extreme heat without adequate hydration as the cause. But hasn't it been hot in Central America for hundreds of years? Have workers' water breaks suddenly grown too rare to prevent kidney failure? I suspect a pesticide will eventually be found to be the culprit, and that brings to mind this question: How safe is our sugar supply?

Back in the early 90's I read a book entitled "Big Sugar" that dealt with the shameful way sugar corporations exploit migrant workers in Florida and Louisiana, so I'm familiar with the heartless way those companies operate even here in the United States. Nothing would surprise me at all when it comes to their disregard for worker safety and protections.

WORKING TO CREATE A SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY NICHE (without going blind in the process...)

2012-02-12T21:31:00.000-06:00

I've not posted as often as I'd like on the blobber of late, but it's because I've been busy trying to maintain our current standard of living (sleeping indoors and eating meals). It's become painfully obvious that the market for action shots of athletes is about as robust as the housing market, forcing yours truly to find creative ways to encourage customers to part with some of their hard-earned dollars.

My original plan was to take embarrassing photos of parents at their kids' games, then find them in the stands and threaten to post them on my website unless they pay me five dollars on the spot to delete them from my camera. Turns out people don't pay ransom money willingly, and (who knew?) some of them take offense to being blackmailed.

So I've had to resort to actual hard work to create a product line people are willing to pay for, without coercion. A few years ago my sister sent me a link to a Photoshop process called "Out of Bounds", and even spent a few minutes showing me how it works with some of my own photos. Since then I've employed that process to create one-of-a-kind action photos for enlargements and posters, and sales are picking up.

Each one of these images requires about fifty individual steps on the computer, and much of the process involves very delicate, tedius "painting" with the mouse. My vision sucks to begin with, and I'm afraid doing this for hours at a time is taking a toll. I'm beginning to squint like the forger in the movie "The Great Escape"...

But I think these are unique to sports photography, and by all accounts the people who spring for them are very pleased with the results.

This method of photo manipulation is also useful when adding artsy-fartsy changes to

nature photos, as well.

I'm curious to know what folks think... would you buy a shot

of your kid playing ball if it were done up in such a manner? Any suggestions?

(By the way, if you have a photo you'd like "tampered" with in a similar fashion, shoot me an email at the address in my profile link and we can talk about it.)

MONDAYS SUCK... EVEN WITHOUT A NEW DOSE OF GUANO

2012-02-12T21:04:00.000-06:00

BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE DYING TO HAVE SOME FRESH HONEY DRIZZLED OVER HOME BAKED BREAD...

2012-02-11T13:46:00.000-06:00

This vid sent me to the kitchen to make toast for butter and honey... dammit!

ZEBRA STRIPES AREN'T JUST FOR CAMOUFLAGE (scientists think they're also a deterent for horseflies... go figure?)

2012-02-11T13:03:00.000-06:00

Over on Discover Magazine's website you'll find a strange assortment of stories about scientific endeavours that might (or might not) interest the average bored human. One of them concerns the evolutionary reasons behind the stripes on the zebra. We've always assumed those stripes provide camouflage meant to hide the animal from predators in the wild, but until now no one had thought to include horseflies among the creatures fooled by the stripes.
It's common knowledge that horses and (by association) zebras are adversely affected by horsefly bites, which cause their victims to lose weight and have trouble producing milk for their young. It's also known that horseflies prefer to land and feed on black horses, while avoiding white or light colored surfaces. So a team of scientists began to experiment to see if stripes might also confuse or repel horseflies. Here's a portion of the article:

[Real zebras] insist on moving around and swishing their tails. The team therefore conducted their study using inanimate objects. Some were painted uniformly dark or uniformly light, and some had stripes of various widths. Some were plastic trays filled with salad oil (to trap any insect that landed). Some were glue-covered boards. And some were actual models of zebra. They put these objects in a field infested with horseflies and counted the number of insects they trapped.

Horseflies are known to prefer horizontal polarised light. Possibly, the mostly vertical stripes on a zebra confuse the fly’s tiny brain and thus stop it seeing the animal.

I think a person who has to work with horses would be well served to dress as an NFL referee, complete with stripes and whistle. The stripes will keep the horseflies confused, and the whistle will scare the piss out of the horses, which is always helpful. (disclaimer: I once lived with a woman who kept about 30 horses on our property, and can tell you there is nothing as useful as a handy device capable of making them leave your general vicinity when you're trying to work... I preferred a gun, or hammer, or rock {and if you haven't read that Squatlo Story about the horse and the rock, take the link), but a whistle would have been effective, too...)

ILLINOIS CONGRESSMAN BEMOANS THE REAL "FOOD STAMP PRESIDENT" ON FLOOR OF HOUSE

2012-02-11T12:27:00.000-06:00

         I've finally finished processing last night's high school basketball action shots and taken a few minutes to troll around the "internets" for blobber material. First stop is almost always Crooks and Liars, because they seem to have their fingers on the pulse of the country's political crooks and liars, and they're almost always Republican assholes who need the exposure.
         Today's offering comes from Democratic Congressman Luis Guitierrez of Illinois who took to the well of the House to discuss the "food stamp president" claim made by Noot Gingrich during the South Carolina primary.
          Pesky ol' facts must have a liberal bias...

IF YOU ALREADY HATE CATS, HERE'S A THEORY TO CONFIRM YOUR FEARS

2012-02-10T17:34:00.000-06:00

      Jaroslav Flegr, a biologist at Pregue's Charles University, has a theory that has some people defensive about their household pets. Flegr has been trying, unsuccessfully, to convince the scientific world that a parasite found in cat feces is responsible for more than the known dangers to pregnant women, but might also be the cause of mental problems such as schizophrenia, as well as suicides, and auto accidents. He insists the t. gondii parasite takes over a million lives a year, perhaps as many as diseases such as malaria.
         Here's part of the story from Boing Boing:

But after years of being ignored or discounted, Flegr is starting to gain respectability. Psychedelic as his claims may sound, many researchers, including such big names in neuroscience as Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky, think he could well be onto something. Flegr’s “studies are well conducted, and I can see no reason to doubt them,” Sapolsky tells me. Indeed, recent findings from Sapolsky’s lab and British groups suggest that the parasite is capable of extraordinary shenanigans. T. gondii, reports Sapolsky, can turn a rat’s strong innate aversion to cats into an attraction, luring it into the jaws of its No. 1 predator. Even more amazing is how it does this: the organism rewires circuits in parts of the brain that deal with such primal emotions as fear, anxiety, and sexual arousal. “Overall,” says Sapolsky, “this is wild, bizarre neurobiology.”

        We're all familiar with the stereotypical "cat lady" syndrome, and I imagine most of us know someone who is so devoted to their cats that they don't notice how batshit crazy they are in other aspects of their lives. Perhaps a bug they've picked up from, well, picking up cat turds is to blame?

"DAILY MAIL" WILLING TO PUBLISH PHOTO OF MODEL WITH (ACCIDENTAL) EXPOSED NIPS, BUT CENSORS THE WORD "TITS" AN HOUR LATER?

2012-02-10T16:33:00.001-06:00

I was browsing around over on Mediaite and found a blurb for a story that caught my attention. Apparently, the folks who run The Daily Mail (whatever the hell THAT is) think it's totally okay to show a photograph of a model accidentally exposing her nips on a NY catwalk (why is it called a 'catwalk' any damn way?) but feel it necessary to censor the word "tits" less than an hour later in another story.
Here's the photo they ran, without an NSFW disclaimer, I might add:

And here's the headline they posted later about a totally different story:

JEOPARDY INTERVIEW LEAVES ALEX TREBEK SPEECHLESS... FOR A SECOND OR TWO

2012-02-10T16:25:00.000-06:00

Here's a guy from Knoxville appearing on Jeopardy as a representative of Duke University, and during the mid-game interview segment tried to explain his hobby of building and racing concrete canoes. Alex asked a simple question, and got an equally simple answer.

I love this show...

IF ANN COULTER WERE AN INSECT...

2012-02-10T13:40:00.000-06:00

Ann Coulter just gave a rousing speech to the CPAC gathering in which she urged them to support Mitt Romney because he's dull. Swear to god... she said he was "square" and that perhaps Republicans should try "square" for a while (since "batshit crazy" and "serial adulterer" aren't working out so well).
Anyway, there was a photo of Ann in all of her skeletal glory, scaring children and making some of us wish she'd just eat a cracker or something. I took a look at the picture and it reminded me of a few things. See if you can see the resemblence...

Sorry... I just despise this bitch.

WAS HE SERIOUS? MISSISSIPPI STATE REP PROPOSED CHANGING GULF OF MEXICO TO "GULF OF AMERICA" (but tells NPR he was teasing his anti-Mexican colleagues)

2012-02-10T09:07:00.000-06:00

          He says he was only kidding... and if he was, he's my new favorite politician of the week. Mississippi state Senator Steve Holland (D) introduced a bill (HB 150) proposing to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America", and now he's catching flak from some Mexican groups for his efforts at humor. Or at least, that's his defense... he was just poking fun at his Republican colleagues, who he says are working overtime to remove anything remotely "Mexican" from the state of Mississippi.
           According to something called "Latino Fox News", another website offered this tribute to Rep. Holland:

A New Orleans website quipped: “Riding upon a chariot of Hummers driven by bald eagles, Mississippi Rep. Steve Holland filed a guns blazing cowboy steak of a bill, proudly waving our nation’s red, white and God-fearing blue to protect our American coastal waters.”

            In an interview with NPR Holland said of his Republican colleagues: "They want to get rid of anything that's not 'America' quote-unquote, so I just thought it would be in keeping to introduce a bill to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the 'Gulf of America'. It fits right in with what the majority thinking apparently is now. We don't want any reference to Mexico or Hispanics of any nature. I love them, myself. But I'm trying to get into the swing of the majority..."

OKIE STATE SENATOR ADDS "EVERY SPERM IS SACRED" AMENDMENT TO PERSONHOOD BILL (but sarcasm is wasted on fundamentalist morons...)

2012-02-09T11:45:00.000-06:00

         Oklahoma conservatives are pressing forward with yet another "personhood" bill aimed at curbing reproductive rights for women in that state, despite the failures of similar bills in other states. Republican lawmakers are attempting to pass a law that would give zygotes the same legal protections offered to actual 'birthed' citizens of Oklahoma, which would ultimately make abortion and many forms of contraceptives illegal there.
         One state senator attempted to poke a little fun at her colleagues by adding an amendment which included this phrase:

However, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.

          State Senator Constance Johnson offered the amendment in jest, hoping some of her colleagues would be able to see the absurdity of their own bill, despite all of the testosterone sloshing around their brains. She even voted with them to table her own amendment later in the day, as further evidence that she was simply making a point.

          Progressives could have told her she was wasting her time. The one thing a fundamentalist panderer lacks is a fully functioning sense of irony, and those who are working to champion wedge issues near and dear to the wormy hearts of religious nutcases are incapable of shame and oblivious to sarcastic humor.

THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER (perception at a glance...)

2012-02-09T10:15:00.000-06:00

          Here's the text that came with this photo in today's email:

Young men perceive that there is a lovely backside.

Moderately observant people will define this as a backside crossing a street.
Very observant people will note the thong.
For mature men, we are observing a beautiful woman with a magnificent backside, crossing the street.
The perverts will imagine a woman without clothes.
Intelligent men will ponder that the photographer has shared ordinary beauty with the rest of humanity.
For half of observing women, this is a floozy that should not be dressed in this manner.
The other half of observing women are wondering where she might have bought her top.
Intelligent women imagine what is going to become of this floozy when she reaches 50.
Children, Tibetan monks, accountants, lawyers, funeral directors, and homosexuals saw the dog driving the taxi.

       (there's a taxi in this photo? Seriously?)

AW, DAMMIT... THIS IS THE LAST SEASON OF "HOUSE"... (best show on television won't be back after Season 8)

2012-02-09T10:07:00.000-06:00

"House" is one of the few television programs I absolutely, positively won't miss. We always (!) DVR the show just in case we're distracted or called away during its broadcast, and I'm quite sure neither of us has missed an episode during its eight year run.
The show will be shown in syndication forever, so if you haven't followed the story line from the first pilot you can still tune in and catch up. In my humble opinion, Hugh Laurie's Gregory House was, and still is, the most intriguing television character in history. He's a brilliant actor playing an incredibly well-written part, and I'm going to miss this show like oxygen.

SQUATLO IS STUNNED! CONSERVATIVE GEORGE WILL AGREES WITH SQUAT ABOUT REPUBLICAN COMPLAINTS OVER OBAMA'S NATIONAL SECURITY POLICIES...

2012-02-09T09:52:00.000-06:00

         Stop the presses and go get a cold compress for yours truly... Yesterday I wrote a piece about Sean Hannity dissing President Obama as an "appeaser" who would have let bin Laden slip away had it not been for others who insisted on taking him out, a story line completely at odds with reality and those pesky ol' facts. I wrote that conservatives were quickly losing their grip on reality by continuing to sing from the same sad hymnal of past campaigns as they try to paint Democrats in general, and Obama in particular, as weak on terrorism. I even suggested their behavior bordered on insanity, an opinion shared by many of you who bothered to comment on my last post.
         Well, this morning's Nashville Tennessean (motto: "Confirming Squatlo's theories of what's wrong with the universe on a daily basis!") has an opinion column by noted conservative George Will of the Washington Post in which he basically says the same thing, only much more eloquently. (semi-disclaimer... I have always admired the complex writing style of Mr. Will, even though I rarely share his opinions... he's a bright guy with a firm grip on historical references to current events, despite being wrong about everything he writes)
          Will writes that Republicans are losing their national security advantage with their incessant bashing of Obama's foreign policy endeavours, including their recent campaign complaints that Obama has: abandoned our allies in Iraq by pulling out combat troops; snubbed Israel by suggesting a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue; opened a dialogue with the Taliban in Afghanistan; proposed modest cuts to defense spending; and failed to act with sufficient aggression toward Iran's nuclear ambitions or Syria's brutal crackdown on dissidents. In each case Will makes it clear that Obama is merely taking a pragmatic, rational approach to complex issues, and that his efforts have been prudent by any standards other than knee-jerk reactionary spasms favored by Republican candidates for office.
           In the concluding paragraph of today's column Will writes:

Osama bin Laden and many other “high-value targets” are dead, the drone war is being waged more vigorously than ever, and Guantanamo is still open, so Republicans can hardly say Obama has implemented dramatic and dangerous discontinuities regarding counterterrorism. Republicans who think America is being endangered by “appeasement” and military parsimony have worked that pedal on their organ quite enough. (emphasis mine)

           Well said, Will! (don't make a habit of agreeing with me, people will begin to wonder about us both...)

ACCORDING TO SEAN HANNITY, BIN LADEN WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN KILLED IF OBAMA HAD GOTTEN HIS WAY (how far down the rabbit hole does this troll live?)

2012-02-08T22:15:00.000-06:00

             It's pretty obvious that Republicans and their lackeys on talk radio and Faux News have had a tough time pinning the stereotypical "weak on defense" foreign policy label on President Obama, and their frustration with his tendency to kill bad guys is starting to make them look and sound even more ridiculous than usual. Perhaps the most unhinged of them all is Faux News squawker Sean Hannity, as evidenced by a recent comment he made to Republican strategist Frank Luntz.
             Hannity was in the process of criticizing Obama's foreign policy when Luntz commented that the public would indeed give the President credit for killing bin Laden. That wasn't in the meme Hannity had in mind, so he dismissed the SEAL team mission as something that would never have happened if Obama had had his way... "and I think that can be proved as well on tape".
             What the fuck is he talking about? Unlike Obama's predecessor (who once responded to an annoying question about bin Laden's whereabouts by saying "He's just one person... I really just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with you"- a comment that is indeed "on tape") Obama is the guy who overruled a Pentagon plan to bomb bin Laden's compound from above, opting instead for a much riskier raid by Navy SEALs. Obama's the guy who pulled the trigger and watched that raid unfold in real time from the White House situation room, risking the lives of the men he'd sent into harm's way along with his own political future. Obama's the guy, like it or not, who was handed the American flag those SEALs brought back from that mission.
              For a whiny gasbag like Hannity to suggest that giving Obama credit for authorizing that raid is somehow misplaced or undeserved is to be oblivious to reality. And THAT, dear readers, is what Obama's foreign policy successes have done to right wing blowhards like Sean Hannity. The unvarnished truth is so awful for them to confront that they're simply more comfortable in their own little fantasy bubble in which the President is a Muslim Socialist appeaser whose weakness is bringing America to its knees before rising foreign threats.
             When reality's liberal bias can't be twisted to conform to the same, sad playbook conservatives are addicted to using, they simply make up their own version of the facts and wave off any reference to the truth as if it's somehow at fault. They can't stand the fact that the economy is beginning to show real signs of recovery, that housing is beginning to pick up, that unemployment is dropping... and they especially can't deal with the fact that America's sworn enemies are marked men as long as Obama's in the White House. So they make shit up, shrug, and dare you to prove them wrong.

              Captain Queeg had a better grip on reality during his strawberry theft investigation aboard The Caine than Sean Hannity has when it comes to giving Obama credit for his successes.

           Maybe it's time people started to point out the insanity of what people like Hannity are saying.

SPEAKING ON BEHALF OF GOD, LOUIE GOHMERT TAKES ISSUES WITH APPEALS COURT'S PROP 8 RULING ON GAY MARRIAGE ('cause God needs a mouthpiece, and Louie's the biggest tool in the House)

2012-02-08T08:54:00.000-06:00

         Whenever Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) steps up to a microphone or takes to the floor of the House of Representatives to hold forth on any subject I like to turn up the volume and grab some popcorn... 'cause it's "Showtime!" Poor Louie is without a doubt the most entertaining bastard to ever froth at the mouth in public, and he does it often enough to make one wonder if rabies is making a comeback in The Lone Star State...
          Rep. Gohmert is peeved (so mad he could just spit!) because a Federal appeals court panel within the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California has ruled that Prop 8 (a ban on gay marriage) is unconstitutional. The sponsors of Proposition 8 have already appealed that ruling to a full hearing before the entire 9th Circuit Court and have vowed to take the fight all the way to the Soupreems if necessary to protect the sanctity of Noot Gingrich's marriages.
          From a story on Huffington Post, here's Louie Gohmert's latest rant about gays and activist judges:
"Nature seemed to like the idea of an egg and a sperm coming together because of pro-creation," he continued. Drawing a parallel to Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in 2009, he said, "Apparently they thought the sperm had far better use some other way biologically, combining it with something else."

          Yeah, that's exactly what those two left-coast judges were thinking, Louie... that sperm oughta be mixed with "something else" other than female eggs, probably tonsils. Or maybe some frothy Santorum, you know how they are out there in California...
           Rep. Gohmert went on to warn those judges might just get their asses voted off the bench because of this ruling, apparently not understanding that federal judges aren't elected to their positions. But hey, don't let pesky ol' facts get in the way of a good rant, right Louie?

           You know what would make politics a lot more entertaining? We should install a gong in the well of the House and Senate, and whenever enough Americans tuning into CSPAN have had their fill of an absolute idiot's speech they could overwhelm the switchboard at the Capitol and have someone smack the gong to cut off that speaker's microphone in mid-stupid.
            Something tells me Louie Gohmert would get 'gonged' on his way to the podium every time.
And I'd have to find something else to watch with my popcorn.

OBAMA CAMPAIGN TO RECONSIDER SUPER-PAC CONTRIBUTIONS ( why bring a knife to a gunfight? )

2012-02-07T13:31:00.000-06:00

         Okay, this is already making heads turn, so let's look the bastard in the face and see what's there to see... We've all heard of the abomination that is the Citizens United decision, and GOP candidates who were oh-so-happy to find out their deep-pocket money boys could make unlimited donations to independent attack groups have since come to find themselves in the crosshairs of Super PAC attack ads. President Obama has been highly critical of Citizens United, going so far as to bitch about in last year's State of the Union Address while looking at the Robert's Supreme Court. Obama had run for office on a promise to resist using Super PAC money, insisting that American elections shouldn't simply go to the highest bidder.
          But as the general election looms on the White House radar, it's become obvious that the word "unlimited" really means just that when it comes to corporate and billionaire donations to GOP candidates. Karl Rove and the Koch brothers have reportedly promised half a BILLION dollars to help remove Obama from office this November, on top of what individual PACs are spending to help GOP candidates rip one another to shreds in the primaries.   Seeing the amount of spending and the disastrous effect attack ads can have if they dominate the airwaves has gotten the attention of the Obama campaign, and they've issued a press release saying the President is considering "relaxing" his position on Super PAC money.
          Liberals are up in arms, with notables such as Russ Feingold stepping forward to warn the President a reversal on Super PAC funding could make it impossible for Democrats to campaign against Citizens United and well-heeled Republican candidates. But the reality of the situation is clear: either the Democrats escalate their arms buildup to match the Dark Side, or they get wiped out at the polls in November.
          Obama doesn't want to "unilaterally disarm" and abandon the field to the bastards who want to buy this year's elections. But taking corporate cash and unlimited donations from billionaires makes his campaign a part of the same infected problem, and hypocritical to boot.
           I think the answer is to play by the same rules your opponent intends to play by. It would make no sense in these critical times to lose to the merchants of evil just to be able to say "We didn't take dirty money". If the law says Super PAC funding is legal, and all evidence points to the fact that you'll lose without it, who can blame the President and his campaign team for wanting to at least stand a chance this fall?
           I think it's possible to work to change a bad law, even while using it to your best advantage.

TECHNICAL GLITCHES MIGHT DRIVE OLBERMANN FROM CURRENT TV (despite the efforts of Al Gore to keep him on the air)

2012-02-07T08:30:00.000-06:00

Olbermann and the duly elected 43rd President of the United States

         When internal strife between MSNBC and their most famous on-air personality Keith Olbermann reached a boiling point last year, resulting in Olbermann's departure from that network, I was one of the most disappointed fans in the country. Watching Olbermann's "Countdown" as a lead-in to Rachel Maddow's show was a nightly "thing" here at Chateau Squatlo.
          But almost immediately it was announced that Olbermann would be moving over to a network called "CurrentTV", a project started by co-founder Al Gore. I had to search to find Current on my TV guide, and even though it broadcasts in grainy low-def resolution I made plans to tune in when Olbermann returned to the airwaves.
           Since that happy day things have only gone downhill for Olbermann and Current. Rumors of strife between the host and management at the network led many to believe his days there were numbered. I was watching the night the lights went out during his broadcast, and had to admire the fact that he kept on with his show despite the fact that he was sitting in the dark as he spoke.
           For the past couple of weeks Current has had guest hosts sitting in for Olbermann, and I assumed he was on the outs with them again. Last night I tuned in and Olbermann began his show with, "Sitting in for Keith Olbermann, I'm Keith Olbermann"... sarcastic as ever. But then a not-so-funny thing happened during an interview... as his guest was responding to one of Olbermann's questions, the network suddenly cut away to a commercial. Seriously. They just cut away as the dude was talking. Twenty seconds or so later they cut back and the same guy was STILL talking.
           After a commercial break the cameras caught Olbermann looking around his desk as an off-screen voice counted down the seconds until "air time", while on the air. Olbermann looked up and said something to the effect of, "Are we back on, or are we cutting away to another commercial." He obviously wasn't very happy.
           It's hard for me to believe these assholes can't keep their production standards up to local news levels, considering the amount of money they're paying Olbermann to sit behind that desk. There's a story on Huffington Post today detailing the efforts Al Gore has gone to in order to keep Olbermann at Current, despite the low tech quality and cheap sets they employ for his show.
           Hope they work it out, but it wouldn't surprise me if he extends a middle finger one of these nights and storms off the set.

CAMPAIGN GUANO, BECAUSE WE WILL SELL NO POOP BEFORE IT'S TIME...

2012-02-07T08:14:00.000-06:00

WAS CLINT EASTWOOD'S CHRYSLER AD POLITICAL ENDORSEMENT? (or flag waving jingoism on behalf of Detroit...)

2012-02-06T22:01:00.000-06:00

          I'll confess... I didn't see this ad when it aired. I left the "Big Game" at the beginning of the halftime festivities because I'd rather have a boil lanced with a rusty spoon than hear or watch Madonna "perform". Sorry, but there are some things I won't endure, even for football.
          But I've been over to Mooner's site and read that the Eastwood Chrysler ad is raising eyebrows by some who claim it was a tacit endorsement of President Obama's economic policies, especially the auto bailout opposed by every swinging dick in the GOP (because the UAW is a left-wing Democratic operation, don't you know). So I've read a few posts on other blogs and news sites, and sure enough, Republicans are outraged good ol' Clint (the closest living thing to a John Wayne character left in Hollywood) has gone over to the dark side with his narration of this ad.
          I don't really see what they're so pissy about, myself. Sure, he does say the "second half" is about to begin, and I guess that could be interpreted to mean we're at the midpoint between Obama's first and second terms... maybe...
          But if you've watched any of the Chrysler or Cadillac ads recently you'll recognize this effort to re brand Detroit as a kind of come-back story meant to remind Americans that Made in America is more than a slogan, it's an economic reality. Clint's a libertarian/Republican, and while the dialogue he was spouting might be construed to mean he's endorsing Obama, it could just as easily be taken as a sign that an American automobile company has good writers who know how to pluck the heart-strings of a jaded public... just in time for a slight uptick in the car industry's sales.
           Maybe Karl Rove and his ilk are just upset that someone they consider a stalwart citizen has something positive to say about America's future just when they're trying to convince Americans that the hand basket they're riding in is headed for Hell. Who the fuck knows what makes those people tick?
            It's just a car ad, people. Chill the fuck out.

NEED A LITTLE HELP FEELING BETTER ABOUT YOUR FELLOW MAN? READ ANY OF THE VERY SHORT PARAGRAPHS ON THIS LINK, YOU'LL BE BETTER FOR IT!

2012-02-06T14:03:00.000-06:00

         One of my three loyal readers (you know who you are...) sent me a link to a site you need to check out. How do I know you, specifically, need to check out this site? Because you're reading my snarky, sarcastic, cynical, curmudgeonly blog, that's why! You need something uplifting after a stop here, so on your way home, check out http://www.marcandangel.com/2012/02/05/99-tiny-stories/      You'll be glad you did.

         Thanks to Cynthianne for this one!

         Here's the first story from Makes Me Think (MMT):

1.Today, it’s been ten years since my abusive ex-fiancé sold my favorite guitar. He sold it on the day I left him. When I went to claim my belongings, he was proud that he had sold it to a pawn shop. Luckily, I managed to track down the guy who bought it from the pawn shop. He was really sweet, and gave it back to me for free, on the condition that I accompany him on his front porch for an hour to play guitar with him. He grabbed a second guitar and we ended up sitting there on his porch for the rest of the afternoon playing music, talking, and smiling. He’s been my husband for nine years now. MMT

       Here's another one:

11.Today, I have been a counselor for foster care children for almost 15 years. This afternoon I ran into one of my previous foster children I hadn’t seen in over 5 years. About 10 years ago, on a day he was really upset and mad at life, I drew him a sketch of a superhero and wrote him a note on an index card about how he is a superhero and that superheroes always rise up and win in the end. I saw him today as I walked past the local fire station. He’s now a fire fighter. He recognized me as I walked by and ran up to me. We talked for about a half hour, and then before we parted ways he took his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out the superhero index card I made for him when he was a kid. MMT

GROW YOUR OWN REPLACEMENT LIVER (SCIENTISTS WORKING TO GROW HUMAN LIVERS WITHIN THE BODY'S LYMPH NODE SYSTEM)

2012-02-06T08:56:00.000-06:00

          During a recent addled state of mind I subscribed to a science magazine called Discover, and have found myself intrigued more often than not by what I find within its pages. This month's issue includes an article about a research team at The University of Pittsburgh which is attempting to develop a system of liver regeneration for folks with failing livers. Currently, people suffering from liver disease are relegated to the bleak prospect of getting on a donor list for a liver transplants (100,000 patients are typically in need, with only 6,000 available livers), but stem cell researcher Eric Lagasse is working to solve the liver shortage with a radical new technology.
           Lagasse has found that injecting healthy liver cells (hepatocytes) from mice into the lymph nodes of mice with liver disease results in a system of tiny incubators for growing entirely new livers. Those mini-livers then begin to do the work of a healthy liver system, and those terminally ill mice have shown remarkable recoveries.
           Using Lagasse's theory, it might be possible to inject liver cells from healthy donors into the lymph nodes of patients suffering from liver disease, effectively replacing the functions of the damaged liver and eliminating the need for transplantation. It is unknown how the damaged liver signals the stem cells within the lymph nodes to grow and function as a healthy liver, but Lagasse says it's not important why those cells react but that they do.

           The potential for this new research is staggering, and I intend to raise a toast to Mr. Lagasse this evening with the hope he'll be able to replace my liver if I manage to drink it into disrepair!

INDIANA'S SECRETARY OF STATE (WHO RAN ON "VOTER FRAUD" ISSUE) CONVICTED OF VOTER FRAUD

2012-02-06T08:27:00.000-06:00

Former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White

         According to an article on the Indy Star's website (motto: "Working hard to be as useless as Nashville's Gannett franchise!") Indiana's Republican Secretary of State was convicted of having committed six felony counts of voter fraud and removed from office. Funny thing about Secretary Charlie White's campaign last year? He ran with a vow to protect the integrity of Indiana's clean elections by supporting the 2005 voter ID laws.
          Like voter ID laws sponsored by GOP state legislatures across the country, Indiana's anti-fraud voter restrictions were designed to keep certain folks from voting, because those certain folks tend to vote for the "wrong" candidates. Charlie White apparently is one of those people such laws ought to be designed to catch. According to the court records, White claimed to live in his ex-wife's home within his voting district while actually living in a townhouse with his new fiance across town and beyond his district's borders. Not only that, but he voted in the 2010 primary using that old address, AND continued to draw a salary from the district despite living elsewhere.
That little lapse in judgment led to felony convictions for theft, voter fraud, and perjury.
           Indiana's Governor immediately named a temporary replacement Secretary of State, but a previous court had ruled White's election to the office "invalid" due to the fraud charges against him. Since the trial confirmed those charges had been factual, Democrats contend White's opponent should be sworn into office as the legitimate winner of the race.
           Statistics show that a voter is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud, and yet many states have passed voter ID laws to prevent a crime that very rarely occurs. Apparently, some of the people who champion such disenfranchisement deserve to be watched a lot more closely...

STUPOR BOWL SUNDAY (and ten ways they could make such games matter)

2012-02-05T11:40:00.000-06:00

        I'm probably one of the few football fanatics in America who couldn't possibly care less who wins today's Super Bowl game in Indy. Seriously, I doubt we'll even tune in for the show, except perhaps to watch the commercials. Is it a sad commentary on sports' biggest event that most folks tune in for the commercials?
        Speaking of commercials, is anyone else annoyed by the fact that it's called "The Big Game" in most commercials? They can't say "Super Bowl" unless they're a paid sponsor for the game, so they substitute "The Big Game". What horseshit...
        I think the pregame show started two or three days ago, I'm not sure. The game's being played on a channel that doesn't even televise NFL Football during the regular season, which begs the question "Who decides which network gets The Big Game?"
        If it just goes to the highest bidder, does that mean ANY network could host the event if they ponied up the most cash? The Oprah Winfree Super Bowl telecast? How 'bout Al Jazeera?
        At any rate, it'll be the most watched television show in forever, and all sorts of records will be set before, during, and after the game. Yawn...
        Here's a few suggestions for improving the event in the future, and I offer these free of charge to the league and its fans:

1) Just call it the Super Bowl. Stop making non-sponsoring companies call it "The Big Game". For Christ's sake, they're helping promote your event, NFL! Let 'em hype your game for you to help sell their gadgets and insurance and pills and beers. Take a tiny cut of their revenue for the right to mention your asses, and they'll all pay to play.

2) Dump Madonna, the Rolling Stones, The Who, or whatever 70's classic rock band you've hired to screw up your overblown halftime show. No one tunes in to watch over-the-hill groups play medleys of their greatest hits, or to watch for wardrobe malfunctions or bad lip-synch-ing singers. Just once, have a good marching band take to the field and play traditional marches, John Philip Sousa style. You'll get more pats on the back for something everyone can enjoy than you'll ever hear for driving half of America crazy with Steven Tyler butchering a song that sucked when he could still sing.

3) Let a military band play the Star Spangled Banner to start the show. Instead of having some American Idol winner botch the National Anthem, just play the damn song as it was written, sans the sustained warbles and creative interpretations NO ONE LIKES.

4) Limit the number of times you zoom in on Eli Manning's family in a skybox to ONCE. We don't really care if Peyton, Cooper, and Archie are watching from the luxury suite. And repeat that advice for team owners, as well. The game's on the field, not in the box suites.

5) Have a designated "bitch slapper" in the broadcast booth, and make it his job to spin the head of anyone calling the game who uses any of the following phrases:
"It's a game of inches."
"He gives 110 percent."
"They went to a two-deep coverage to take away the deep ball."
"They might challenge the spot on this one..."

6) Give the referees 60 seconds to make a decision on all booth reviews. This bullshit where a ref makes a call, only to have it challenged, resulting in the head referee jogging 100 yards in order to stick his head under Ansel Adams' tin-type camera hood sucks. It delays an already boring game, and wastes more time you could have spent showing us the newest Miller Lite commercials.
"Tastes flat, Less feeling". If they can't make a call in 60 seconds, the call on the field stands. There. Fixed it. In fact, just eliminate the fucking replay review altogether. Make human error on the part of the referees a part of the game again, instead of analyzing frame by frame details of whether or not a receiver's foot touched the sideline during a catch. Play ball, quit whining!

7) Send your sideline reporters back to the truck for coffee, and don't even think about interviewing a player or coach DURING THE GODDAM GAME. They're busy. If they aren't busy, they should be in the truck having coffee with the sideline reporters.

8) Absolutely, positively, do not allow the TV network hosting the game to endlessly promote whatever situation comedy or drama immediately follows the game. If they want to advertise, they can do it on their own dime, not America's.

9) Here's one for the fans who actually bought tickets and made it to the game: allow any ball that makes it into the stands via punts, kickoffs, field goals, passes, or spiked balls to become the property of whomever catches the ball, just like in baseball. Take down the silly-shit net behind the goal posts and let a fan get a Super Bowl football for a souvenir. If they get hit in the face with a field goal, it'll make a great clip for Sports Center. Make the players toss or punt the balls into the stands after scores, instead of carrying the ball home to auction on eBay. They're making enough money from this one game alone to be able to let go of a football.

10) And here's the one thing that would make this game mean something again: Return the game to a matchup between leagues that don't play one another in any other setting. Today's game is a rematch. Yawn... Just like the bullshit college football "championship" last month, it's a game that's already been played. Who gives a shit about a rematch? The reason the first three or four Super Bowls were "super" was because bragging rights were at stake between the two leagues. Those of us who loved a team in the National Football League pulled for that league's representative against those upstarts from the sissy American Football League, and it made the game intensely interesting for everyone, whether their team was on the field or not. You CARED if the Jets beat the Colts, because league pride was at stake. No one would have given a shit if the Packers beat the Raiders in the Super Bowl if they had already beaten 'em in Oakland a month earlier. Segregate the leagues again, and make that one game the only time they meet.

          No need to thank me, I offer this as a public service.

          Want me to fix college football's playoff system for you? Just say the word...

WHY WE SHOULD ALL FEAR AN ISRAELI AIR STRIKE ON IRAN'S NUKE FACILITIES (and how conservatives have inside info such an attack is imminent)

2012-02-05T09:11:00.000-06:00

         Ever since the United States entered into an invasion and occupation of Iraq, neighboring Iran has benefited from the resultant destabilization of military power in the region. An Arab Spring might have upset traditional alliances and decades of power structures in the middle east, but Iran has maintained a fairly orderly government throughout massive changes around its borders. For every bromide we've heard about removing an evil dictator from Iraq, there have been exponential fears of a nuclear armed Iran in the world's future.
          Now it appears some Washington insiders have been made privy to information indicating an Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities is imminent, probably occurring within the next three months. Why would such info be allowed to "leak" from the Israeli defense department? Because those in power in both Israel and the United States want to make certain public opinion is braced for the results of such a raid: life as we know it will take a turn for the worse in the days following such an air strike.
          David Ignatius wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post indicating he had uncovered a leak from within the Israeli government indicating an air strike was almost certainly in the works. Charles Krauthammer, a colleague of Ignatius' at the newspaper, then spoke at length about it on "Inside Washington":

“I think it’s fairly certain the Israelis are going to attack or you would not have had this leak, deliberately coming this week from secretary of Defense through David Ignatius of The [Washington] Post saying that he thinks there is a high likelihood Israel is going to attack, and then he went ahead and specified when. He said three months, April, May or June. And you don’t say that unless there is obviously indications from the Israelis that they are going to do this even if they get and they are getting a signal from the United States not to do it.”

Krauthammer doubted Israel was factoring what impact a strike against Iran might have on upcoming U.S. presidential election.

“No, I think the calculation is what Ignatius reported as Panetta said: The Israelis think that the problem is that Iran is about to enter the zone of immunity. And that means the trigger is not the assumption that Iran now has the know-how to make a bomb. That is later down the road. What comes earlier is when Iran has put enough uranium in completely untouchable, protected sites, like the mountain outside of Qom where you cannot touch it, meaning that at that point, Iran has the wherewithal, the facilities, the material that it can build a bomb unmolested, and then it can never be attacked again. If Israel thinks it is approaching the point of immunity, it will attack.”
                      (transcript courtesy of The Daily Caller)

         When you consider the amount of oil that must pass through the Strait of Hormuz to satisfy the demands of both Europe and the United States, it becomes clear that an Israeli military strike within the borders of Iran would trigger worldwide disruptions in the oil markets. Our military, primarily in the form of naval warships, would then be needed to maintain navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, and the potential for a deadly and catastrophic action by Iran's military (or a terrorist cell coordinating with Iran and Syria) would be hair-trigger close to reality.
          Imagine the scenario: the breaking news reports would breathlessly inform us that military action by Israel was occurring in real time, and massive air strikes at numerous Iranian facilities was being reported. Almost immediately, the Iranian navy would begin to engage American warships and oil tankers in the Strait, including the possible mining of the Strait by Iran. Air engagements and raids from Israel would continue for days, and missile attacks from Iran and Syria into civilian areas of Israel would incite panic in that country. Our president would be forced to side with Israel's defense, and vow to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for business- an almost impossible task, given the close proximity to land and the potential for missile attacks on our fleet. Withing hours of the initial raids, gas prices would skyrocket in the United States and in Europe. Russian and Chinese ambassadors to the U.N. would issue threats to Israel, backing the Iranian people's "freedom to pursue safe nuclear power", and Cold War-esque tensions would ensue. A provisional government in Egypt would be hard-pressed by radicals in that country to side with Iran against Israel and the United States, turning a new generation of Egyptians against our countries for the foreseeable future.

          This isn't a scenario any of us should welcome or hope for, regardless of your opinions of a nuclear armed Iran.
           The real question is why the Israeli government would make such a "leak" available to western media outlets. The only answer I can see is that they anticipate such an attack to be unavoidable, and therefore want to prime the well of public support in advance of such an attack, knowing the resultant chaos would eventually leave Israel with few friends on the planet.

           In short, it's not in anyone's interests to see such a conflagration in the middle east. But if it has to happen, as the Israeli "leak" seems to indicate, then the power brokers want to turn American and European allies' public opinion in their favor before it starts.

TRUMP ENDORSES MITT AFTER TEASING POOR NOOT, AND RON PAUL WONDERS WHY ANYONE GIVES A SHIT...

2012-02-03T11:47:00.000-06:00

          I was processing high school basketball photos yesterday but had the television tuned to cable news (it's good to know when tornadoes or incoming missiles are headed your way) and heard The Donald's super-huge "everybody look at me!" endorsement of Mittens Romney in Las Vegas. There was a moment or two when I thought about getting up from my desk to go see the show, and then I thought to myself, "Self, why would anyone give a shit?"

         Turns out Ron Paul had the same opinion. And he's right. What difference does it make who Donald Fucking Trump favors in the remaining clown posse of GOP candidates? Sarah Palin and her hubby might care, because they crave the spotlight almost as much as Trump, but other than those two and the five people who give a shit about Donald Trump (his ex-wives and their accountants) why does this matter to anyone else?
          It doesn't. Pee Wee Herman should come out and hold a press conference endorsing Santorum, just for effect.

"ONE MILLION MOMS" PROJECT OF AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION ATTACKS J.C.PENNEY FOR HIRING ELLEN DEGENERES AS SPOKESPERSON

2012-02-02T12:01:00.000-06:00

         Ellen accepting her People's Choice Award as most popular daytime host

         J.C. Penney recently announced an effort to rebrand their image in the American consumers' eyes, and apparently one conservative group isn't happy with the new brand. Of course, finding something that makes One Million Moms and their parent organization the American Family Association happy is like finding a Rhodes Scholar in the Tennessee General Assembly's GOP caucus.
          Here's a quote from the group's website:
"Funny that J.C. Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families," the group wrote on its website. "More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly [and] their brand transformation will be unsuccessful."

The anti-gay group is asking people to call J.C. Penney to complain, telling the company to fire DeGeneres and "remain neutral in the culture war."

         Another quote from the Mommy website:
Their marketing strategy is to help families shop and receive a good value for their money. Degeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there. The small percentage of customers they are attempting to satisfy will not offset their loss in sales.

           Let me repeat that last sentence: "The small percentage of customers they are attempting to satisfy will not offset their loss in sales."
           Do these trolls really think J.C. Penney is exclusively trying to lock up the lesbian fashion market? Or could it be that J.C. Penney realizes Ellen Degeneres' show "Ellen" averages 3.38 million people a day in viewership, which is roughly (I'm not good with numbers...) about 2.8 million more folks than belong to One Million Moms?
           You get the feeling there are Church Lady types out there with email in-boxes teeming with calls to action for a boycott of J.C. Penney stores because the company had the gall to hire the most popular daytime host on television.
            The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination has rallied to Ellen's defense, starting a Stand Up for Ellen campaign, noting that the American Family Association has been designated a hate-group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

            I rarely watch daytime television, but on the few occasions I've stumbled across Ellen's show I've found myself carried away by her happy enthusiasm and energy. She's one funny woman, and conducts brilliantly funny interviews day after day. Her guests have almost as much fun as her studio audiences, and it would take quite a prude to find anything at all offensive about her show.
            But the "quite a prude" crowd is eager to let us all know they're out there, worried deeply about the moral decline of America, and making sure their bigotry and intolerance stay in the forefront of the culture wars.
            Has it occurred to anyone that there would be no culture wars if only groups like One Million Moms and the American Family Association wouldn't start them every chance they got?

ANGELO DUNDEE HAS PASSED AT AGE 90 (cornerman for Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard)

2012-02-02T09:20:00.000-06:00

                 Angelo Dundee with Muhammad Ali

         If I had to name another fight trainer, I'd be screwed. Angelo Dundee was in Ali's corner for all but two of his professional fights, and later worked with 'a smaller version Ali' Sugar Ray Leonard.
         Dundee passed away at a Florida rehabilitation center after contracting a blood clot from a trip to attend Ali's 70th birthday party.
         If you were a fan of Ali's or watched any of his fights, you'll rememeber hearing Dundee's shouts from the corner. His most famous words caught on tape were when he implored Sugar Ray Leonard between rounds of his Thomas Hearns' fight, "You're blowing it, son! You're blowing it!"
         Leonard went out and scored a TKO over Hearns in the next round.

TEABAGGER CANDIDATES IN ALABAMA PROMISE TO IMPEACH OBAMA IF ELECTED (and the crowd goes wild...)

2012-02-02T08:47:00.001-06:00

         Republican House candidates Pete Riehm and Dean Young

          If you want to consider just how "red" the state of Alabama is, try this fact on for size: No Democrat qualified for any ballot in the entirety of Baldwin County for the upcoming elections. In fact, two Tea Party Republicans are so dissatisfied with the conservative bona fides of their current representative that they're challenging their fellow Republican in the primaries by promising to impeach President Obama if elected.
           At a teabagger forum hosted by the group "Common Sense Campaign", speakers took turns trying to out-flank one another by moving further and further to the right. Former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore was there to campaign for his old job, and in his opening remarks reminded people that he was a teabagger before the Tea Party even existed. You might remember Moore, he's the troglodyte who fought federal orders to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse in 2003.
            When asked on what grounds they would attempt an impeachment of Obama, Young offered empty blather and Riehm pointed to the Obama administration's failure to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act:
“It’s a serious step, and I wouldn’t take it lightly,” said Young. “First, I would cut off his funding. If that didn’t work, I would introduce a resolution describing what he’s done wrong. The last resort, which I am willing to take, would be to impeach him. We simply cannot allow him to continue to operate the way he has.”

Riehm provided a detailed description of the president’s duties as defined by the Constitution, and a list of his alleged violations — including the failure to enforce federal laws on immigration, elections and the Defense of Marriage Act.

          You halfway expect a birther comment to justify their proposed actions.

          And people in Alabama wonder why the rest of the country looks at them like they're from another planet. Or century.