1.     Taboo Plaza

The random pattern continues.

 

2.     Current Affairs

 

Barak Obama announces his candidacy for the president of the United States of America.

You’ve got admire his spunk.  Any black man running for president becomes a target of the crazy, bigot segment of the American population. 

Beyond that, what will he do?  Who knows? 

It’s more than a year and a half before elections will take place.  All of this hype will slowly dwindle away until the primaries.  I hope that he can hang in there that long.  Republicans and Democrats are going to start trying to bury this guy within the next three months. 

As it is, his announcement has suddenly sprouted a public debate about his level of blackness.

In all of this let’s keep two things straight, Obama is black enough to risk taking a bullet if he wins the election and if Clinton wins, we will be governed by 2 families for a quarter of a century.

 

Iran is flawed, but who cares with past U.S. cries of wolf overshadowing any attempts to describe reality.

Now the chickens come home to roost.  Do we have a problem with Iran supplying insurgencies in Iraq?  Who knows and who cares, because U.S. intelligence has proven deceitful in the past. 

Now a legitimate cry will be ignored. 

Now the U.S. needs to defend its credibility as aggressively as we are attacking Middle Easterners.  If we do not regain credibility, we will be in a much worse situation soon.

U.S. Evidence?  It is simply our word.  We are saying that metal shards carry a uniqueness that we can trace back to Iran. 

We can trace it. 

It’s unique.

The Punishment if Iran continues along the path that it is on?  They’ll be isolated with all their oil and their membership in OPEC.  I’m sure our laser-like focus on becoming independent of fossil fuels in the U.S. will certainly be the final blow that will cause Iran’s resources to crash.

If we continue on our current path, prepare for war with Iran and the return of the Draft.

           

3.     Then Humans Discovered… (The final saga of Krunk: Part 4)

 

Continued from February 10^th post.

Krunk ate berries that night until his belly hurt.  The flaming branch lay on the ground next to him.  The branch dared anyone of the Group keeping their distance to come over and try to stop Krunk.  The Group respected the flaming branch, and as long as he possessed it, they respected Krunk.

A full belly was a new experience for Krunk.  His life had been filled with grabbing what little he could get into his hands and then running away from those who would chase him.  Krunk was inexperienced at dealing with the lethargy that accompanies a bloated belly.

As the berries moved into his mouth more slowly, his eyelids grew heavier.  Krunk then experienced the slovenly habits that sometimes correlate with power.  Krunk looked around and saw faces staring at him from a distance.  The children pointed and danced around him.  The females lowered their eyes and turned their buttocks to him.  The men who did not dance and point, bared their teeth at Krunk.

Krunk dared more in that day than anyone from this Group had before.  Krunk had taken Normandy and stormed Waterloo all in one swoop.  He did this all before he really realized what he had done. 

It cannot be said that the thought really occurred to him, but he knew that he was now in danger.  A general sense of foreboding swept over him as he fell asleep.  He knew there was nothing he could do about it.

In an effort to stay awake, Krunk sat down against a tree and held the flaming branch in front of him.  Krunk began to stare into the flame and feel comfortable.  His eyelids grew heavier and before he could stop the branch dropped to the ground.

Krunk was asleep. 

It did not take long before Groon reentered the Camp.  As Krunk slept, Groon approached with a rock in his hand.  Groon used a tool that was always quick and efficient. 

After Groon brought the rock down on Krunk’s head, Krunk never awoke again.

 

4.     Getting to Know Your Government

 

Last week’s batch of Senators averaged 3.5 years average time in public service as U.S. Senators. This week’s batch of Senators average 16.25 years  in public service as U.S. Senators.

 

Daniel Inouye (Democrat, Hawaii)

·        Religion: Methodist

·        Member of 442^nd Regimental Combat Team (WWII)

o       Recipient of Bronze Star and Medal of Honor

·        1950: University of Hawaii, BA

·        1953: George Washington University Law School, JD

·        1959 to 1963: U.S. House of Representatives

·        1963 to present: U.S. Senate

 

Daniel Akaka (Democrat, Hawaii)

·        Religion: Congregationalist

·        1952: University of Hawaii, BA

·        1966: University of Hawaii, Masters of Education

·        1977 to 1990: U.S. House of Representatives

·        1990 to present: U.S. Senator

 

Larry Craig (Republican, Idaho)

·        Religion: Methodist

·        1969: University of Idaho, BA

·        1970: George Washington University, pursued graduate studies

·        1975 to 1979: Idaho State Senate

·        1981 to 1991: U.S. House of Representatives

·        1991 to present: U.S. Senate

 

Mike Crapo (Republican, Idaho)

·        Religion: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon)

·        1973: Brigham Young University, BA

·        1977: Harvard Law School, JD

·        1985 to 1992: Idaho State Senate

·        1993 to 1999: U.S. House of Representatives

·        1999- present: U.S. Senator

 

5.     Our Nation is Now Dumber for This…Thank You for Your Participation!

 

“Not Again”

Maybe I was high after shooting heroin into my eyeball, or something, when I saw this commercial; but I just don’t get the point from Above the Influence’s latest propaganda campaign.

I’ve got a BA in English, so I’m going to fall back on some of those skills to see if I can break it down.  Let me know where I deviate from the message.

A dude and a chick are sitting on a bench.  He’s smoking something, but luckily we’ve got an arrow with the word ‘weed’ above it to let us know in fact this is a pothead. 

(If we were left to assume we might guess it is marijuana since the ad was created by Above the Influence.  As far as I know they haven’t started to attack the tobacco companies, therefore it is not a tremendous leap to go with the assumption they are targeting the evil marijuana magnates of the world here.  Luckily though, they’ve helped out the dense stoners with the word ‘weed’ printed on screen with the arrow pointing to the smoking stogie.)

So this guy and girl are sitting on a bench with pretty, peaceful, piano music playing.  The tone of the commercial actually gives a very relaxed feeling like a Zen Buddhist might be meditating.  The guy sits there puffing his joint and the girl is thinking ‘not again.’  All the while in the background, a UFO lands and an alien gets out.  The alien approaches.  The guy offers the alien a puff. 

(The stoner is actually making a fairly generous offer and extending a much better greeting to an alien rather than the shotguns that might greet a UFO in many parts of the world.)

The alien stops and thinks about it.  He’s tempted, but he says, ‘no thanks.’  The girl falls in love with the alien and they fly off together in the UFO.

What the hell were the people who created this commercial smoking when they put this one together?

In my critique I’ll leave the drawing aside, but a girl that falls in love with an extraterrestrial simply because he doesn’t smoke pot?  What does that say about this girl?  And apparently she is the prize to be won in this context, if you stay above the influence.

Now I’ve had some pretty psychotic encounters with various women, but this one would take the cake.  Let’s analyze the prize to be won here.  Make the right decision and this is what you will get: a girl who hangs out with guys who smoke pot even though she really hates pot smokers.  This chick is schizoid.  It isn’t as if the pot smokers of the world are coercing everyone else to hang out with them while they get stoned.  The more the merrier really doesn’t apply to drug use, unless you’ve got a huge stash. 

So with that assumption, maybe this guy does have a bunch of money.  Then that makes her a gold digger.  Quite the prize there!  But let’s assume for a moment that he doesn’t have a lot of money.  Maybe, she really likes this guy.  For whatever reason, she’s found some intrinsic value in hanging around a pot smoker.  Then she decides that she doesn’t like him simply because someone else turns down a joint?  Here it isn’t even as simple as that.  It’s not just someone else; it’s a being from another planet turning down the joint.

In that scenario she likes him, but ditches him because of image and the next big thing.  She is shallow.  That presents another great prize for our youth to stay Above the Influence.  We still haven’t touched on the fact that she got into a spaceship with someone she just met.

I try to ingrain in my daughters not to get in a car with someone they don’t know and yet this chick is getting into a spaceship and probably leaving the planet with someone she just met.

This commercial is a nonsensical farce on so many levels.  I think it is more detrimental to have our children identify with this type of nonsense, while trying to link really important life lessons to them, than it would be to just let your kid hit a doobie.  Expecting a message like this to really deliver a solid philosophy for people to carry with them throughout their life is like expecting someone to become a better person because they saw your “Got Jesus” bumper sticker. 

Our kids are dumber for bullshit propaganda campaigns and so am I. 

Thanks a lot Above the Influence now why don’t you go out and pay some real writers to produce hard-hitting, mind-warping rhetoric or treat a complex issue as if it is a complex issue. 

Stop plastering bumper stickers on my television.

 

6.     Down On Rage Street

The random pattern continues.

 

7.     My Butthole Bleeds for You…Really….It Does

 

Anna Nicole Smith. 

They all struggle to find something good to say.  They all struggle to find something bad to say.  They all struggle to say something, anything, at all. 

You were: it is that simple.

The 24-hour news networks will play on a sad, sad song.  In 5 weeks, they surely will find something else to talk about. 

You were.

Hopefully you have someone else willing to continue your memory after the 24-hour news networks move on. 

If it is any consolation, your story may have more legs than the chick in the diaper.

 

8.     Tip of the week

 

You are and will do what you portray in your attitude. 

It’s simple but true.  If you say you can’t, then you won’t.  If you are asked to do something and your first response is it can’t be done, they’ll find someone else that says it can. 

Have a conscience and exercise your integrity at every opportunity, but don’t defeat yourself before you get out of bed.

 

9.     Birthday Shout Outs (2-4 to 2-10)

 

·        (2/4/1913) Rosa Parks- Her name comes up at least once a year in the company of Martin Luther King Jr.  All for having the guts to say no.

·         (2/4/1941) John Steel- He was the lead drummer for The Animals.  If they never made another song other than House of the Rising Sun they would still rock.

·        (2/5/1940) H.R. Giger- He produced some of the coolest artwork in the 20^th century.  Although the movie Aliens never really did anything for me.

·        (2/5/1962) Jennifer Jason Leigh- She was in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Easy Money that’s enough for me.

·        (2/5/1964) Duff McKagan- He’s played bass for Guns N Roses as well as Velvet Revolver.

·        (2/5/1969) Bobby Brown- This guy was insanely over in the 90’s and then he just seemed to go insane.  Still a lot of decent music emerged from his presence on this earth. 

·        (2/6/1756) Aaron Burr- He was the 3^rd Vice President of the United States of America, but even cooler, he shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

·        (2/6/1911) Ronald Reagan- The 40^th President of the United States of America.

·        (2/6/1931) Mamie Van Doren- A hottie from back in the day..

·        (2/6/1945) Bob Marley- The true king.  This guy had it together.  I cannot stress enough, if you haven’t heard this album you have not lived a full life and quite frankly I feel sorry for you.

·        (2/6/1957) Robert Townsend- How different would the world be if he had taken Eddie Murphy’s spot on Saturday Night Live?  Still a funny, creative guy.

·        (2/6/1962) Axl Rose- He had a couple great albums in him.  Then again, he had the gull to sing a cappella when I saw him live.  Therefore I don’t feel too bad that somebody bought his name from him.

·        (2/7/1478) Sir Thomas More- His biggest legacy is the book Utopia that he wrote.  He’d probably keel over dead if he weren’t already dead at the state of the world today. 

·        (2/7/1812) Charles Dickens- Dickens was great.  What would Christmas be without Ebenezer Scrooge?

·        (2/7/1962) Garth Brooks- This guy transcends musical genre.  A truly world-class, talented performer and musician.  Apparently he doesn’t mess around with his copyrighted material though, because there’s very little to be found on you tube.  This was the best version of “The Dance” I could find.

·        (2/7/1966) Chris Rock- One of the funniest men to ever pick up a microphone.  Up there with Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Prior, Sam Kinison and Eddie Murphy.

·        (2/8/1921) “Classy” Freddie Blassie- A legend in professional wrestling you pencil-necked geek.

·        (2/8/1921) Lana Turner- Quite the looker in her day.  She was an all around hottie.

·         (2/8/1961) Vince Neil- Lead vocals for Motel Crue.  They had a great start with their first two albums.  After that I stopped listening.  This however is a great album.

·        (2/8/1968) Gary Coleman- What else do you need other than “What you talking about Mr. D?”

·        (2/8/1974) Seth Green- This guy is just hilarious.  For his work in the Austin Powers series alone he’s had a hell of a career.

·        (2/9/1773) William Harrison- The 9^th President of the United States of America.

·        (2/9/1943) Joe Pesci- Where do you start with this guy’s career?  Goodfellas, Easy Money and My Cousin Vinny lend more success to his resume than any actor has a right to ask.

·         (2/9/1979) Ziyi Zhang- Not a household name, but Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a great movie.  She gets props for that.  Plus she ain’t hard to look at.

·        (2/10/1930) Robert Wagner- This guy has done a lot of work, but he’s here because of his work in Austin Powers.

·        (2/10/1939) Roberta Flack- One song can make a career.

·        (2/10/1955) “Gentleman” Chris Adams- This guy was truly unique in wrestling.  As a side note- he was the guy who trained Stone Cold Steve Austin.

·        (2/10/1962) Cliff Burton- The original bass player for Metallica and quite possibly the heart and soul of the band.  Make no mistake.  This he had no part in.  If you don’t own this album you owe it to yourself to go out and purchase it now!