Rant

Aw Man, the Bar just keeps getting higher and higher and …

Okay, back when I started to write, it was good enough to be published.  Not paid, mind; just published.

Well, okay … I had a humor column in an internationally published periodical.  Granted, it was for college libraries, but still … I made it under the bar.

Then simply getting published in an international periodical wasn’t enough.  Something you wrote had to be mentioned in a pop song!

Well, okay … several pop songs have had Boingy in them, so I counted it as a possible and moved on.  Bar managed again.

But this!  Now the high water mark for any writer is to have a music video dedicated to them by a sexy woman begging for sex! At present, it’s only Ray Bradbury … which sorta makes sense, actually.  I mean, now only would trying to get anything to rhyme with Asimov be a total bitch, Fuck me, Issac Asimov would be necrophilia.

Anyway, the gauntlet has been hurled.  So if anyone reading this just so happens to be able to sing decently, like to dress indecently, and doesn’t mind video work, please contact me.  I’ll be working on lyrics.

Well … this is certainly irritating!

Dian and I have this married couple that we are close friends with (we do everything together except swapping) and Dian wanted to make the wife a nice present for her birthday … a crocheted purse in her college colors.

Y’see, the two of them met at college at Kansas University and are fanatical about their alma matter.  Damn near everything they own are either in their team colors or have some sort of decal on it.  So, when the wife … for the sake of this, let’s call her Betty … when Betty admired a crocheted purse that Dian had made for a charity event, Dian decided to make one for Betty’s birthday.

Getting yarn in the correct colors wasn’t hard, neither was getting webbing for the shoulder straps.  The lining material was a little more difficult, but I found a fabric store on-line that had exactly what Dian wanted.  Now everything is done and it looked really nice.

Except Dian wants to put a KU embroidered patch on either side of it, just for a crowning touch.

Now one would think that finding an embroidered patch for a major college would be an easy thing … but one would be wrong!

Try it.  Go on-line and search for an embroidered KU patch.  I’ll wait.

If you found one, I’ll bet you it’s impossible to order it!  I found a couple at various sites, but every last one of them lacked the “Buy Now” or “Add to Shopping Cart” button needed to actual buy the damn things.

I found sites that carried KU thongs, pacifiers, and even adult diapers.  I browsed through page after page of KU themed items and material.  If I wanted a condom with an NCAA officially approved KU Jayhawk image on it, I’d be laughing, but are there any friggin’ embroidered patches out there, official or not?

Amazing.  Simply amazing.  The only way to get her what she wants is to buy an official KU golfing towel and cut the damn embroidered patch off of it!

A potentially lucrative market complete ignored, and why?  Were the folks who make the thongs and tees worried that, if somebody could simply buy a patch of their favorite team, that they’d just sew it to whatever and not spend the extra twenty bucks for their official product?  Insanity.

Tea Bag Party

Y’know, it’s not that I totally disagree with the Tea Party. I agree that the people of the United States have to reclaim the government.

Government has become big business and the private plaything of the wealthy and privileged; it needs to become that representative body that it was intended to be, not a bastion for special interests and lobbyists.

However, that doesn’t mean that the Government of the United States has to be either conservative or liberal. We are a mixture of beliefs and desires, so our government has to reflect that mixture. Nor should our country or government be run on strictly Christian beliefs. Separation of church and state is one of the more basic tenets our country. We may be ‘one country under God,’ but so are all countries, if you think about it, and even if their religion is different, that doesn’t mean their God is.

No, I’ll take my government straight up, with no ‘moral superiority’ or ‘fundamentalist’ chaser … which seems to be the recipe that the Tea Party wants to pour for everyone. At least, on the surface.

Y’see, I’ve spent a goodly amount of time studying the various Tea Parties and their beliefs, and it seems that their conservatism is more of a gloss than anything else. A nice paint job to cover the actual machine underneath, rather like painting hearts and crosses on a tank.

What they seem more dedicated to than morality or conservatism is a return to a status quo that ensured that they continue to get everything they feel entitled to, without dilution or having to share with anyone else. A system that benefits them, first, before taking care of anyone else.

I was a cub scout as a child. It was fun and I really enjoyed it. Then a new family moved into town, one where the kids were all scouts and the father was a scout master, and they did their level best to take over our troop. Y’see, we didn’t run our troop like the one that they belonged to at their last place, where the father was the leading authority on all things scouting and his sons were the executive enforcers of his will.

Well, we had a nice troop, with lots of activities and camping trips, and nobody really wanted to change it. I mean, so we had a few scouts who didn’t have a full uniform and others who weren’t really all that interested in merit badges … but so what? We had a good time and everyone learned something every week; what was the harm?

In the end, the father actually petitioned the scout council to disband our troop in favor of a more “proper” one run by himself.

Now I know any political party exists almost exclusively to change the system to better reflect what they believe is right, but the Tea Party reminds me of that family of scout nazi’s from my youth. They really didn’t want to improve our troop, they just wanted to ensure that it was a mirror image of their old troop, with their needs and desires taken care of and everyone else would come to realize that it was really better that way. Hell, they might have even been sincere in their desires and totally ignorant of how it seemed.

Me? I’m for taking back the government … but I’m also for civil rights, all civil rights. I don’t care what it says in your Bible, friend; marriage should be for everyone who loves. (And, frankly, if you really believe that two guys getting married somehow weakens your ‘blessed union,’ then I have to wonder just how strong it is in the first place.)

I’d like us to stem the tide of illegal immigrants, but only because – by very definition – they’re ‘illegal.’ Hell, none of our forefathers had any more right to come here and I’m pretty sure that the original settlers hadn’t filled out the proper forms with the then official governing natives of the country … so what the hell do any of us have to feel superior for? I like the idea of a simple program in place to promote citizenship for those here illegally, but I also support the deportation of anyone who refuses to apply for that citizenship. In short, follow the friggin’ rules or get the fuck out.

I’m for a woman’s right to choose, but also believe that birth control should be mandatory until a certain age. You want less children with children? Well the entire ‘educate them on the consequences’ plan sure ain’t working, shipmate. Instead, make it mandatory for both boys and girls to have a contraceptive implant in place until their of legal age.

You want to get rid of abortion?

Fine, come up with something more reasonable from all angles, not just the ‘abortion is murder’ chant. People aren’t adopting those in orphanages and the wealthy will go to Russia to ensure they get a white infant, instead of taking the ‘mutts’ available here. You want the government to raise the unwanted kids? Really?

Willing to pay the taxes needed to do a good job of it, amigo?

Listen, I’d like all of you to realize that I know exactly what this country needs to return to greatness, and for all of you to do exactly what I say to achieve that … but I’m a known nut who’s spent time on a mental ward. Hell, I don’t even do everything I want me to do, so why on Earth would I expect you to?

On the other hand, as a famous enough dude once said, “It doesn’t take a great actor to recognize a bad one.” I’m sane enough to see the insanity that others are pushing and more than crooked enough to realize that their ultimate goals are not those found in any Bible.

If you believe, truly believe, that the government belongs in the hands of the Tea Party, then – certainly – go ahead and vote for whomever they endorse. But take the time to research and truly understand that they are, ultimately, just another bunch of opportunistic politicians saying whatever it takes to come out on top. As a group, they are no more likely to be honest or true representatives than either Democrats or Republicans.

We all get the government we deserve, so take the time to actually study the various candidates and parties. Find out which person has voted for what, or who has experience and who is just a strawman puppet propped up to front for some other group, which person will actually do what they say and which are just saying what they think you want to hear to get into office.

Take the time and make the effort, and end up with the government you want, not just the one you deserve.

In the meantime, remember that the unofficial front woman for the Tea Party is Sarah Palin … and act accordingly, okay?

Who’da thunk it?

53 years old.

I don’t know if any of you will understand this, but I am actually somewhat embarrassed by the fact that I continue to grow older.  I was assured – by a medical professional, mind you – that I wasn’t going to survive to retire, much less make it to 53!

So I never planned on getting this old.  I never really thought about the next year, much less the next decade, and simply let it all happen, one day at a time.  As a result, the fact that I survived my military career by sixteen years is, oddly enough, rather mortifying.  I mean … really.

The only real planning I ever did was to get a vasectomy in my twenties.  I figured that, given how close I’d come to buying it on several occasions, it would be bad enough to leave my parents, siblings, and – with luck – a loved one (or two) behind … the idea of maybe fathering a kid and then dying in the line of duty terrified me.

As a result, I’m the only member of my immediate family who will not leave prodigy behind (which is, in retrospect, for the best; I mean, given my mental difficulties, it might have been somewhat cruel to burden a child with my dna), so those genes that make me uniquely me, die with me.  To the good side, I only have to deal with the idea that I might leave Dian behind (which saddens me beyond belief … as much as her passing would destroy me, I can only pray for the kindness that she might go first); to the bad, no spawn to succor me in my golden years.

Which seem to be coming, regardless of how I might feel about it.  Golden years … adult diapers, baldness, and a plethora of physical problems; what the hell is so damn golden about that?  I mean, the reward of living a healthy and sensible life is living long enough to need somebody to change your nappies again.

Of course, the alternative (what I like to thing of as the Jim Morrison option) is only superficially superior.  I mean, granted, one goes out in one’s prime … but one is still gone, isn’t one?  And leaving the party early, so to speak, is tacky.

On the other hand, had I died in service, I would have been spared Tea Party politics, Sarah Palin (who, by the by, has called me twice in the last week to try and convince me to vote for somebody I’ve never heard of … and if you think she sounds bad during interviews, you should hear her on the phone; alm0st like a recording), and Fox News.

One is hard pressed to locate how matters balance out, in all honesty.

And thus the years move on.  Hell, four more years and I’ll be a 57 year old man who was  born in‘57, which seems gaudy as hell, if you ask me.

The worse part is that my diet, which has become terribly important in my old age, doesn’t really permit me ice cream and cake!!  I mean, what is the p0int of birthdays if one cannot have ice cream and cake!?  Okay, I understand that after a certain age, pony rides and clowns are a bit creepy, but ice cream and cake … what the hell good is growing a year older if there can’t be friggin’ ice cream and bloody cake!!

Harsh and unfair?!?

Lindsay Lohan’s lawyer quit shortly after bitching about the verdict.

Go ahead a read it.

“Ms. Lohan and I are extremely disappointed in the sentence handed down by Judge (Marsha) Revel,” Holley’s statement had read. “We believe that the penalty is far harsher than what others would have received under similar circumstances.

“The reality is that Ms. Lohan, like most defendants, had to balance work commitments with court requirements. To be punished so severely for doing so, particularly in light of the fact that she substantially complied with each of her probationary conditions, is harsh and unfair,” it said.

No, madam, the reality is that were your client anyone but a celebrity, her butt would have been in jail long, long ago!

First, she was involved in a traffic accident in May of 2007 and arrested for DUI.  They found, when they searched her car, what was described as “a usable amount” of cocaine in her car, but they only hit her with the misdemeanor DUI charge and she entered rehab and, when she left rehab after 45 days, was fitted with a SCRAM bracelet to monitor her sobriety as part of her sentencing.

Then she was arrested for a second DUI less than sixty days later in July.  Again, the police found a small amount of cocaine, in her pocket this time and was booked on a felony charge of possession and a misdemeanor charge of DUI AND driving with a suspended license.   Prison time?  No, more rehab.

In August, 2007, she pleaded guilty to the plea bargain reduced charges of “cocaine use and DUI” and was sentenced to one day of imprisonment and ten days of community service.  Oh, she also had to pay a fine and compete an alcohol education program, and was given three years of probation, but what the hell is that?  I liken it to a firm slap on the wrist.

She served 84 minutes of jail time (overcrowding, y’know) and she blew off several of the substance abuse treatment classes.  Jail time yet?  No, her probation was extended an extra year.

She somehow managed to behave herself for close to three years, but missed a scheduled court appearance in May of this year because, and I love this, she was attending Cannes and claimed that her passport had been stolen, making it impossible for her to return to the United States in time.  A bench warrant was issued, but rescinded after her reps posted bail.  Jail time yet?

Nope.  She attended a rescheduled hearing where the judge ordered her to attend weekly alcohol education classes, wear an alchol-monitoring bracelet, refrain from any booze (or drugs, one assumes) and undergo random weekly drug testing.

Then the bracelet went off during the MTV movie celebration parties, but we won’t even bother with that.

The bottom line here is that, if this had been you or I, our butts would have been sitting in the slammer from the first offense.  The instant the police found cocaine in our car, especially after a DUI accident, we would have been sentenced and in the slammer faster than you can say “Confessions of a Teen-age Drama Queen!”

And she even acted up in court while pretending to be a tragic figure!  Knowing that the fucking camera would catch every second of it (but the judge would be too far away to notice the fine writing), she had “fuck you” written on the finger nail of the middle figure of her left hand.

I can’t wait to see what does to her appeal.  Yeah, that’s right … her appeal.  90 days in jail is just too harsh a punishment, right?  Got to appeal that or else the celebrity justice system might walk all over her celebrity rights!

Oh, spiffing … another costume change.

There is a word in every dictionary, a perfectly good word that has a perfectly good concrete definition.

Icon.

It’s not a hard concept, really, but people who happen to own the rights to an icon get all itchy about it.  Y’see, there’s only so much one can make off an icon.  It’s a steady, but finite, profit concept in a world of people trained to the belief that the only profits that count are massive windfalls.

So they fret and wibble and rant and finally get enough people to agree with them, then go a little nuts and – KABLAM! – do something like this:

Superman is an icon, but one can only sell so many comics of the same old, same old, last surviving son of Krypton, so they decided to shake it up a bit.  There have been other examples of this, but this is probably the most famous.

Was it a good change?

Hell, no!  Electro Superman sucked big time!

Was it intended as a permanent change?

Well … tough question to answer.  According to DC comics, it was just part of a planned story arc and his return to his classic costume and powers was always planned … but what else could they say when it tanked?  “Well, we screwed up?”

Here’s their latest attempt at a re-image:

DC really doesn’t seem to get the entire ‘icon’ thing, do they?

(By the way, is it just me, or does anyone else sorta get a old Superboy vibe from the jacket?)

Actually, screwing with Wonder Woman’s costume really shouldn’t surprise anyone, at least not anyone who’s read comics for any amount of time.  Wonder Woman’s look is something that the company just can’t seem to leave alone.

This is the original:

All the elements of the classic look are there, but since the time didn’t really permit decent women to run around in Daisy Dukes, there’s a full skirt instead of shorts.  Here’s a sort of overview of the various changes that have been made in just the last decade or so:

My personal favorite Wonder Woman change was when they decided to make her a sixties hipster, took away all her powers, made her a master of martial arts, gave an oriental teacher (named, and I’m not making this up, I Ching … check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me) and introduced the new Wonder Woman:

If you can believe it, this particular version lasted from late 1968 to mid-1973 and was only rescued and returned to her Amazonian glory by this woman:

So why is DC dicking around with her look now?

Well, they say it’s because they wanted “a more modern, urban look” and wanted to upgrade her out of fighting crime in what was, essentially, a bathing suit.  However, as befitting a comic book company, only ten years olds will buy that.

I’m betting the real reason is because of the planned Wonder Woman movie.  The same reason the company does damn near anything anymore, so that the major windfall profits of a successful movie, hopefully a series of movies, can be realized.

Because at DC, there is only one real icon they recognize and respect anymore:

*Facepalm*

Okay, read the article … we’ll all wait until you get back.

Do-de-dum-de-do-dee-dee … Okay, welcome back. Now, answer the following question:

Why in the name of all that’s holy is that woman still, yet, considered to be a political force?! I mean, I know that politics makes even the most intelligent of voters occasionally turn into total morons whenever party lines are threatened, but – seriously – how many brain cells have to commit hari-kari for somebody, anybody, to view Sarah “I’m quitting to better serve the people of Alaska” Palin as anything but a con artist in a tight skirt?!?

Y’see, this is the primary reason … well, this and all the publicity craving wackos who show up for every event … I cannot even begin to respect the Tea Baggers.  To take somebody like Palin to their bosom as a guiding light is as rational and confidence building as if they announced they’re for making juggling loaded shotguns a mandatory event in grade schools!

Man … I’ve ranted myself into a stress headache now!  Damn.

Well, poot!

1:23 left in the season and the Celtics are down by six.  The Lakers did one hell of a job of battling back, so I gotta give them credit.

:51 seconds and they’re down by three … could it happen?

:25 Wallace fouls out, shooting foul.  Bryant hits two free throws and Boston back down by five.

Five points in twenty-five seconds?!?  Okay, the season is over and the Lakers won the championship.  Congratulations to all you Laker fans.  At this point, all that Boston can do is hit a three and immediately foul.  Pray that the shooter misses both free throws and hit one more three.

:13  Shit!  They hit the three!  Down by three … a slim chance!  They either have to intercept the inbound pass or foul as fast as possible.

:12  They fouled.  If they miss the free … nope, that’s the game.

Congratulations LA … you overpaid crybabies!  I hope Phil Jackson gets a cramp in his chakras!

A black Spider-Man?

From the WTF files comes this little bit of social tinkering, a group of Twitter-heads are trying to stage a grassroots movement to have the reboot of the Spider-Man franchise feature a black actor as Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

Okay, let me start off by saying there is absolutely no reason that any role couldn’t go to any actor or actress, regardless of race, gender, or political party.  Heck, I don’t suppose I could come up with a really good reason that the role of Abraham Lincoln couldn’t be played by a female Chinese midget.

Well, aside from the obvious fact that Lincoln wasn’t female, Chinese, or a midget, of course.  Other than that …

Sadly, that’s sorta the point.  Lincoln was a real person and everyone knows he was a tall and rather ugly man with questionable taste in hats.  Everyone who’s ever read a comic book knows that Peter Parker was a skinny white guy, too, but – since he’s not a real person – it’s believed by many that he could be played by a skinny black actor.  I suppose the next thing the masses will try to change will be Superman or Batman.  Frankly, I’ve always wanted to see a gay Superman played by a blue eyed blond and the idea of a female Batman is, in it’s own way, rather enticing.

After all, changing Jim West from Robert Conrad to Will Smith was pure movie gold, right?

The crazy bit to all this is that while this gang of social engineers try to pull a Betty White with Spider-Man’s casting, M. Night Shyamalan is catching hell for making the lead of The Last Airbender a white kid instead of the oriental he was in the cartoon!

I mean, wtf?

I swear, people keep trying to screw with my childhood.   Listen, just leave the friggin’ legends alone!  Do them right, in accordance with how they’ve always been, and – if you really want to come up with something fresher – try inventing something new, instead of fucking around with something classic!!  Invent, instead of stealing and altering, and show us all how damn creative you can be when you have to work from scratch, okay?

A simple mathematical fact

Take any group and figure the average intelligence; half of the group will be above average and half will be below average (one or two will actually hit the average, but not enough to tip the half and half aspect).

This is true no matter what group you’re measuring, okay?  Not racist, not ageist, not sexist; half above the line and half below.

Okay?

Okay … now, if everyone in the group happens to be PhD’s, then it really doesn’t matter which half you belong to, does it?

On the other hand, if everyone in the group happens to be high school drop-outs who still have problems with basic spelling, it also doesn’t matter to which half you belong.

No problem, whatsoever.  Really.

Fine … now here’s the silly aspect of this:  Combine the two groups, set the dividing line, and then tell all of them that their opinions, each and every one of them, above and below the line, is equally important on all matters and counts just as much as any other.

Democracy.

Every vote counts.  Those that take the time to research out every issue count only as much as those who simply do whatever Glen Beck or Jon Steward says.  Every opinion is equally valid, every viewpoint equally valid, every person with just as much right to decide what happens to the country as the next … it doesn’t matter if you spent a couple dozen years in college and graduate school or simply flip a coin so you can get back to the television as fast as possible.

Democracy was a good idea, as far as governments go, but depended on all involved to set the countries best interests ahead of their own interests, both professional and personal.  It depended on each man and woman taking the time to think about the countries need, without considering their own needs, desires, or moral/religious leanings.

In short, it was friggin’ doomed from the get go and we’re seeing what the natural result of such a system.  Only the wealthy are elected to positions of power, so the common man’s viewpoint is lost  Those in power want to stay in power, so – instead of dedicating themselves to the country and their elected duties – they spend most of their time campaigning.  An educated electorate is … unpredictable, so they pander and make education less of an intellectual goal and more of a social one.  Finally, to ensure that the people vote properly, they buy mass communication venues (first print, then television, now cable) and pay attractive men and women to endlessly repeat those messages they want the people to parrot back.

Power to the people, amigos … provided those people are our kind of people.

I fear we are living in the last great days of America, shipmates.