Taboo Plaza

I feel sorry for the kids today. 
When I say kid, I'm really talking about a young adult in their early to mid-twenties.  It's not a good time to be a kid at that age today.
When I was that age, we got drunk. 
Really good and pissed.
All kinds of things would happen.  Some of those things I was even able to remember the next day.  I made a fool of myself at times.  I drank to excess.
I vomited.
Don't get me wrong.  It is a lot of wasted time- with a heavy emphasis on the wasted- but I learned about people during those years.  A true friend will reveal themselves when you're most at need and when are you more at need then when you're wasted?  I've had people give me rides home when I clearly wouldn't have made it.  I've had friends still talk to me even after an outrageous expression of rage and frustration. 
I've had fun while bowling. 
Shooting the lights out on the pool table.
Laughing and drinking with good people.
That is all not to say kids can't do it today.  It's a hard lifestyle to justify as a validation of the Greek God Dionysus.
Getting shitty is not a great way to get ahead in a career, unless you work at that kind of place.  And those places are still out there.  The cultures of just getting shitty on the company's dime as a way to build team unity, I mean.  It doesn't necessarily build any more unity than was already there, but everyone gets really shitty and it weeds out the ones who don't bite their tongues.
Kids today have all kinds of opportunity to enjoy this lifestyle; however, they have to live under a repressive system concerning their mode of returning home. 
The Cops man.
The Fuzz.
The Bronze will be on you like nobodies business and that's a buzz kill.  I couldn't tell you how many times I've driven home drunk with no incidents and no occurrences.  The only thing that occurred was me going home and going to bed.  Sometimes I even got sick first.  It's not magic, bragging or even just a silly shot at being outrageous. 

DUI laws in this country suck.

I've driven drunk as have many other people I know.  I know we're not special because I've seen lots of people I didn't know doing it.  I would submit for your consideration that most people who drink and drive; don't get caught.  The reason that I believe this is so is because everyone I've ever talked to about getting arrested for a DUI got pulled over for something else.  They were swerving.  Their tail light was out.  Tags were expired.  They wrecked into a house.
Most people that drink and drive don't do these things, because most of the people that drink and drive are what would be considered relatively responsible people.  They've got day jobs and they do their thing.  They pay extra attention behind the wheel when they've been drinking, because that is the responsible thing to do.  The same was true when I was a kid in my mid-twenties and I think the same thing is true today.
Since it was so then I see no reason to believe it is different now.
Kids today got it bad because they've got to sweat the Man more than I ever did drinking and driving.  Sure some are probably more responsible and take a trolley, but have we really conquered this problem of people dying anymore today than we did back in my day by taking more stuff from more people under the judicial eyes of Intoxication Law?
These laws are brutal in some states.  Its nothing to play around with simply because you can lose a lot for merely being labeled intoxicated.  The definition keeps going down too. 
It use to be that falling asleep at the wheel was the sign of being too drunk to drive.  Then it became .10.  In some places it's now .08 or just because you said you had something to drink ever that day. 
It's fucking ridiculous because the crime only occurs when you hit something or someone with your car, yet socially we don't quite seem to see it that way anymore.  Now your seemingly wrong for picking up keys after you picked up the hooch.  It's moving closer to being wrong for picking up the hooch.  It's just not there yet.  Give it time for us to move yet closer to prohibition again.  As if all our ancestors did not drink beer and wine. 
It's ridiculous what we do to our children when we clamp down on the only fun they may ever have in their life.

Current Affairs

The build up to the contest for the next President of the United States of America is still in motion.  The presidential topic of last week seemed to be 'the capacity to care about people.'  West Virginia Senator John D. Rockefeller expressed concern with John McCain's ability to have empathy for average Americans.

Rockefeller was quoted as saying, "McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit.  What happened when they get to the ground?  He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people.  McCain never gets into those issues.”

It's interesting how in times of stress, issues like empathy will be attached to government office.  If empathy is a must shouldn't the people in office be able to understand the citizens for whom they work?  A signficant factor in every American's life is income and finances.  To truly empathize with an American you must know around how much they make.  Which circles they frequent.  These factors seem to be key characteristics to predict the attitudes that will follow.

President George Bush and Laura made 1.6 million dollars in 2007.  Vice President Cheney and Lynne generated 3 million dollars in that same time period.  Barack and Michelle Obama took in 1.6 million dollars in 2005.  Hillary and Bill Clinton made 109 million dollars since Bill left office in 2001.  These people are well above the 48 thousand dollar median income in America.  The American public has been out bidded of empathy from the financial circles the aforementioned individuals dwell. 

It is difficult to believe that a millionaire can really understand the life of someone living on $20,000 or less a year.  It may be possible for a short while if the millionaire is new to the money; however, it is inevitable that memories fade and routines become established.

It might be interesting to hear what Senator Rockefeller thinks the distance created by income does to one's point of view when trying to understand "the lives of people."  Then again it might also be interesting to hear John D. Rockefeller's opinion about representing the same state with his current counterpart (Senator Robert Byrd) who was once an active member of the Ku Klux Klan. 

What does being an ex-avowed racist do to one's ability to care about the live's of people.

In regard to President Bush, Rockefeller has been quoted opining, "people like Al Gore and John Kerry...knew all the answers to everything and...could not relate to regular people. That is the main reason a lot of people voted for Bush.  People said, ‘I could have a beer with this guy.’”




In other news of politicians being out of touch with the people they represent, Hillary Clinton accuses Barrack Obama of being an elitist due to comments he made in San Francisco a week ago Saturday.  The event was closed to the media when Obama's "elitist" response showed up as an answer to a question essentially asking why he thought he was not polling better in Pennsylvania.

Hillary Clinton has been quoted saying that she's "taken back" and that his remarks were "demeaning" about "small-town" America.  Hillary has also been quoted as saying Obama is trying to separate “those who are enlightened and those who are not” in America. 

Clinton has brought the issue up several times- and in several locations- since the story got hot last week.  In Indiana, Hillary Clinton expressed concern over Barack's comments because she claims that they were “not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans.”

It might prove interesting to see what it is Obama said in something other than soundbites.  The transcript below was provided by the Huffington Post.  Once again, Obama's remarks allegedly arose from a question about why he's not doing better in Pennsylvania,

"...I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people...I think they're misunderstanding why the demographics in...this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work — don't wanna vote for the black guy...in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by...a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama...that adds another layer of skepticism...the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is...close tax loopholes, roll back...the tax cuts for the top 1 percent...give tax breaks to middle-class folks and...provide health care for every American...our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them.  And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Obama's comments may indicate that he is an elitist.  He is clearly claiming that some people "cling" to guns, religion and xenophobia.  He is claiming that some people don't 'get' trade and immigration legislation. His comments could be interpreted to tell a story of Obama looking down on these people. 

It would be easier to create this story if Obama had somehow indicated in his statements that HE 'got' the legislation policies that the people in small Mid-west towns don't 'get.'  The transcript provided by the Huffington Post only indicates that he could've been insinuating that the people in that San Francisco room 'got it.'   However, maybe Obama meant that he wouldn't "cling" to guns, religion and xenophobia.  That's really not such a bad thing.

One thing is clear.  Obama was expressing an honest belief.  Whether his belief is correct or incorrect, Barack Obama made a statement that didn't appear to be well calculated, but it seems to contain an air of honesty.  This man looks exhausted from campaigning for several months solid. 

Senator Clinton, looking amazingly chipper and well rested, took this opportunity to attack Obama on his statement- and the nature of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution- when she said, "Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a constitutional right; Americans who believe in God believe it’s a matter of personal faith.” 

The Second Amendment is short and sweet.  "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

This is an interesting time for Hillary Clinton to begin defending the Second Amendment.  Recently, Clinton launched details for an anti-crime initiative she would like to institute if elected president.  Particular details of the plan sound very promising.  She intends to eliminate mandatory minimums for crack cocaine users.  These laws have institutionally supported racism and a police state in American urban neighborhoods since the 1980's.

While announcing her $4 billion anti-crime initiative, Clinton took the opportunity to take another shot at Obama when she reportedly said, "Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them, they need a president who stands up for them."

Other parts of her plan sound great and make for great soundbites.  She wants to reduce homicide rates.  Everyone is for that.  She wants to reduce the number of non-violent offenders spending time in prison.  That's admirable.  She wants to hire 100,000 police officers to focus on high-crime areas.  That's certainly more sensible than hiring 100,000 police officers to focus on low-crime areas.  To round her initiative out, she also wants to target identity-theft and child exploitation as well as reinstate "the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004."

That last measure seems to conflict with her statement courting Pennsylvania voters with high-minded talk of believing in the constitutional right of the Second Amendment.  Arguments can be made all day, but in the end the Second Amendment is very clear. 

"..the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

An assault weapons ban is an infringement anyway it's rationalized.  This might seem like a good opportunity for Barack Obama to come back at Senator Clinton and question her about apparent hypocrisy.  He need not look only to Clinton's current initiative for fodder to pick apart her calculated position du jour.  "On the Issue" dot org reports Hillary Clinton has demonstrated a strong opposition to "absolute right to gun ownership" as opposed to just an opposition.

That website has attributed the following statements to Hillary Clinton while in public office:

"We have to enact laws that will keep guns out of the hand of children and criminals and mentally unbalanced persons."  (The funny thing about "mentally unbalanced persons" is that it seems so cut and dry until you start trying to define who fits into that category.  It really begins to seem problematic when you look at who was considered mentally unbalanced historically.)

"I realize the NRA is a formidable political group; but I believe the American people are ready to come together as a nation and do whatever it takes to keep guns away from people who shouldn’t have them."

“I stand in support of this common sense legislation to license everyone who wishes to purchase a gun.  I also believe that every new handgun sale or transfer should be registered in a national registry."

One problem in American politics is the lack of honesty.  Politicians in America today lack a sense of authenticity. 

A politician today is expected to be calculating in what they say.  A politician today is expected to change their position with the change of the blowing public polling winds.  That is essentially what I heard when I read Obama's statement, "in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it."

Hillary Clinton exemplifies this tradition.  While announcing her anti-crime initiative in Pennsylvania, she apparently thought it wise to take a shot at President Bush when she said,

"It is a sad day in America when the president can find hundreds of billions of dollars to police another country's civil war, but cuts funds for police officers right here at home."

Hillary Clinton has voted in favor of many propositions to support pumping money into the Iraq War.  In October 2002, Hillary Clinton's confusion of authentic opinion seemed incredibly clear when she delivered a floor speech in the Senate declaring her support for the Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq.

She helped propogate the idea- at the time- that possession of nuclear weapons and a tie to Al Qaeda justified the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when she said,

"Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members..."

She also confused the very simple matter of whether or not her decision on the initiative was a difficult one to decide.  She states at one point in her floor speech, "President Bush's speech in Cincinnati and the changes in policy that have come forth since the Administration began broaching this issue some weeks ago have made my vote easier."

Then later- in the same floor speech- she says, "This is a very difficult vote. This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make — any vote that may lead to war should be hard — but I cast it with conviction."

She continually hedged her position with qualifications on what she was saying with her vote to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq , but in the end the legislation she signed had "Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq" right at the top. 

She was voting to authorize the use of military force in Iraq.  That was the name of the initiative.  She was voting for war with Iraq.

It doesn't stop there though.  She "voted YES on $86 billion for military operations in Iraq & Afghanistan. (Oct 2003)."  She "voted NO on redeploying troops out of Iraq by July 2007. (Jun 2006)" 

he is a part of the government that allowed the present administration to deviate its attention from domestic issues to pouring tons of cash into a never-ending adventure in the Middle East. 

Apparently, the people in Pennsylvania are torn though.  Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell was quoted saying, “Hunting and sportsmanship are long-established traditions here, and people of faith founded the commonwealth and continue to live here. What the senator [Barack Obama] has done is essentially misread what is actually happening in Pennsylvania.”

Whereas J. Richard Gray- Mayor of Lancaster, PA- was quoted saying, “I don’t think he’s [Barack Obama] demeaning religion or guns.  He’s saying the use of those issues as wedge issues plays on the bitterness that people have and diverts attention from the real economic issues, like the disparity between the wage earner and the rich.”

Justin Taylor- Mayor of Carbondale, PA- reportedly agreed with Obama's characterization of small town Pennsylvania folk.  “People are bitter and at the end of their rope.”

Where does that leave us in the election cycle? 

At the same point where we started.  April 22nd Pennsylvania voters will cast ballots followed by Indiana and North Carolina on May 6th.  If the Democratic primary race continues beyond that point, Nebraskans and West Virginians cast ballots May 13th, then citizens of Kentucky and Oregon on May 20th, followed by citizens of Idaho May 27th and finally the people in Puerto Rico may have their chance to voice their opinions on June 1st. 

There's still a lot of time left to get really burned out on the race for the President of the United States of America.





The Jelly Bean Gig

Two friends stared into space over a beer at Denny’s.

“So I got promoted the other day at work.”
“Oh yeah.  You finally got off the floor.”
“Yeah.  I’m not sorting red jelly beans from yellow jelly beans anymore.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Well, now I supervise the people sorting red jelly beans from yellow jelly beans.”
“That’s it?”
”Well, no.  I also have to figure out how they can sort more of those red jelly beans from those

yellow jelly beans faster than they’re doing it now."
“I guess that’s not too bad.  Is it a good job?”
“Yeah, and I have to figure out how we can start throwing green jelly beans in there too.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard.”
“And then I have to fire half the people who are currently sorting jelly beans.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“So, are you happy?”
“I’m making more money.”

Two friends continued to stare into space over a beer at Denny’s.

Question of the Week

What is the story you told yourself to get through this week? 
How many different ways can that story be told?

Tip of the week

Stay healthy.  Being sick sucks.

Birthday Shout Outs (Apr. 13th through Apr. 19th)

4/13
(1743) Thomas Jefferson- 3rd President of the United States of America.
(1926) Don Adams- Would you believe he was being protected by a large troop of girl scouts carrying baskets full of kittens?
(1945) Tony Dow- It's Wally.
(1946) Al Green- The brother was smooth.

4/14
(1941) Pete Rose- He's in the WWE Hall of Fame even if he's not in the MLB Hall of Fame.



(1945) Ritchie Blackmore- At one point, he was one of the biggest guitar players in rock and roll.


4/15
(1452) Leonardo da Vinci- He holds a hallowed spot in the annals of history.
(1933) Elizabeth Montgomery- She was Mary Ann on "Bewitched" to Barbara Eden's Ginger on "I Dream of Jeannie."

4/16
(1937) George "The Animal" Steele- He was very entertaining for being semi-useless in the ring by the time I started watching him.
(1939) Dusty Springfield- "Son of a Preacher Man" is a beautiful song.

(1947) Gerry Rafferty- He played "Stuck in the Middle With You," "Baker Street" and "Right Down the Line" songs that are timeless as far as I'm concerned.

(1947) Kareem Abdul Jabar- An NBA legend.

4/17
(1954) "Rowdy" Roddy Piper- He's one of the greatest professional wrestlers to have ever picked up a microphone.

4/18
(1857) Clarence Darrow- He helped move our civilization forward if only a little bit by arguing for evolution in the U.S. Supreme Court.
(1947) James Woods- I like his work in "Diggstown."
(1963) Conan O'Brien- He's got a funny David-Letterman-esque quality to him.  He's funny even though he's really not that funny.  That's a tough thing to pull off.

4/19
(1935) Dudley Moore- His work in "Arthur" is the best.

(1941) Alan Price- The Animals were awesome.



(1946) Tim Curry- I've never been a fan of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" but I really liked his work in "Clue."

Belly Laugh

In Living Color was one of the best sketch comedy shows in the history of television.