Hall of Lame

The 20th Century has had a number of personalities whose fame far exceeded their ability. Can we say that their grasp exceeded their reach? Here, in my opinion, are a fair number of them:

Architecture – Frank Lloyd Wright
Art – Andy Warhol (honorable mention, Salvador Dali)
Business – Bill Gates
Dance – Martha Graham
TV – Walter Cronkite
Movies – Mae West (honorable mention, Joan Crawford)
Music – Bob Dylan (honorable mention, Madonna)
Poetry – Maya Angelou
President – Woodrow Wilson (honorable mention, Jimmy Carter)
Royalty – Princess Diana (honorable mention, Prince Charles)
Science – Carl Sagan (honorable mention, Al Gore)
Sports – Wilt Chamberlain
Stage – Ethel Merman (honorable mention, Carol Channing)
Writing – Norman Mailer

If anyone wants my rationale(s) for these pick(s), leave a challanging comment and I will respond.

Juxtaposition II

 I can't help myself ...

Juxtaposition

Sorry, I couldn't resist ...

Potato Head

The federal government is making one more insane intrusion into the life of its citizen sheep.  It is considering baning the potato from its child nutrition programs.  See Baning Potatoes.

I recently wrote a blog about another chuckle-headed move by the feds ... its banning of certain incandescent light bulbs.  See Junkier Science.  Now Big Brother has sharp-elbowed his way into our lives once again.  When will he stop?  When he pushes his way into our bedroom?  Oops, of course not, government bedroom intrusion will only be allowed when food or tobacco is included (but not involving cannabis, underage children, or illegal immigrants.)  One medium baked potato has only 160 calories and it is loaded with potassium and vitamin C.  Yet, it is now to be "relegated to the secular arm."  Those in favor of this insanity say that it is not so much that the potato is evil, but it is the butter, sour cream, and salt that we put on the potato ... or the fat in which it is fried.  Isn't that the same argument that was once use against marijuana ... that it was what went along with pot usage that was evil?  (It was a "gateway drug.") Can now we call this carom-shot morality?

Our Next President …

* Will have, as a campaign slogan, “Hype and Something Else”
* Will have, as a campaign motto, “A Newer Ending”
* Will have written a book titled “It Takes a Neighborhood to Dream of My Father Going Rogue”
* Will be androgynous (shemale?)
* Will admit to doing designer drugs in the past but be vague about present-day usage
* Will have been born in Ethiopia inside the U.S. Embassy
* Will be a Navaho/Vietnamese cross-breed
* Will have, as a campaign theme song, “There’s No Tomorrow”
* Will have, as a campaign manager, Phil Spector
* Will promise not to raise taxes [too much]
* Will have raised, through the Internet and Iphones, $25 billion in campaign funds
* Will choose Barney Frank, the defeated House incumbent, as Vice President
* Will name George Soros as Secretary of the Treasury
* Will name Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of Defense
* Will name Chelsea Clinton as Secretary of State
* Will name [the disbarred] Sandy Berger as Attorney General
* Will name Richard Simmons as Surgeon General
* Will redecorate the White House in the style of a bordello
* Will pardon Bernard Madoff
* Will win the Nobel Prize in Economics, Physics, Medicine, and Peace
* Will also win an Oscar, a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and Megabucks
* Will have a pet mongrel dog named “Rush”

Phobia-phobic

Let me tiptoe into this subject. Carl Paladino, the GOP candidate for governor in New York State, recently said that parents should not expose their young children to Gay Pride parades. See this story. Now, I did a quick scan of the Internet via Google and came up with the following images taken at these parades … see above and below. And believe me; I have excluded a great many frontal-nude pictures that are even more egregious (showing what is said in “Monty Python” as the “naughty bits”). Yes, I go along with candidate Paladino in his assertion about such parades are damaging to young minds.  It just seems that a civilized society should have its limits … unfortunately, most of which have been trampled on decades ago.  Why, to show that I have no problem with gays, must I also have no problem with such out-of-bounds behavior?  And more to the disturbing point ... are all the homosexuals taking part in these festivities "proud" of these all-too-frequent images?

And on a similar theme … what’s with this term “homophobic?” I don’t think many in our modern culture are irrationally fearful of gays. Just as most labeled “racists” are not irrationally fearful of blacks. Yet, I am a little “islamophobic” in that I have seen what some people in this religion are capable of doing to apostates.

Dirtbag Award

This blog site has just instituted the "Dirtbag Award."  This will be a periodic prize given to that person or persons in the national news who have distinguished themselves by craven behavior far beyond the call of civilized behavior.  There is no voting for this award beyond the gag reflexes of the keeper of this blog.

Now for the first bestowing of this prize (see picture above) ... trumpets please.  Our initial recipient is John Tierney, Congressman from the 6th District of Massachusetts, whose wife, Patricia, just pled guilty in federal court to money laundering and tax evasion.  These charges stem from Patricia Tierney's management of a bank account that illegally funneled $7 million of proceeds from the off-shore (Antigua) on-line gambling operations of her brothers, Robert and Daniel Eremian, indicted in August of this year on charges of racketeering, money laundering and operating an illegal gambling business.  Although congressman Tierney denies any hint or knowledge of his wife's illicit activities, he did vote in 2006 (along with Barney Frank and six other Massachusetts congressmen) against the bill that made the laundering of such gambling proceeds illegal (the bill passed in the House 317-93 and became law).  Read the whole story here.

Representation without Taxation

47% of Americans pay no federal income taxes and I would speculate a great many, who work off the books, also pay no FICA taxes either. Yet everyone, including I suspect, many non-citizens get to vote for national representatives who turn around and vote for laws that perpetuate these inequities. (Motor-voter laws, lax voter registration processes … taken advantage by “community organizers” such as ACORN, and the rapid growth of absentee ballot usage are making a mockery of traditional voter-fraud checks.) Thus, we have turned the slogan of the original tea-partiers on its head … now a growing number of people in this country are enjoying “representation without taxation.”

Even in local elections, many who pay absolutely no property taxes get to vote. All colleges and other non-profits nevertheless get to elect their community officials. (In Wellesley, MA, Wellesley College professors and administrators who live in rent-free and property-tax-free housing … and who send their children to local schools … still get to vote for their local candidates. And the colleges and other non-profits themselves enjoy fire/police protection and other community services without having to pay the taxes or, too often, the “fees-in-lieu-of-taxes” needed to pay for these services.) And even more egregiously, students at these institutions of higher learning now get to vote for town administrators where they go to school as opposed to where they (or their parents) actually pay taxes – even though many might also absentee-vote back at “home” too. Such up-side-down logic seems to me to be gross miscarriage of the tenants of our democracy.

“Don’t tread on me,” has unfortunately become “Everyone, who wants to, tread on me.”

Hope and Change

Here is the change that Obama's economic policies has brought us.  Now for the hope.  Perhaps ...?

Sour Grapes

Here are a few of Obama's recent sour-grapes comments:

“And then there are probably some aspects of the Tea Party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the president.”

"When we passed a bill earlier this summer to help states save jobs -- the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers and nurses and police officers and firefighters that were about to be laid off -- they said no. And the Republican who thinks he's going to take over as speaker [John Boehner]... when he was asked about this, he dismissed those jobs as 'government jobs' that weren't worth saving. That's what he said, I'm quoting -- 'government jobs.'"

“Looks like the ‘Tan-Man’ [Boehner] keeps drinking from the tanning oil bottle with his buds.”

“We've got a tradition in this country of a press that oftentimes is opinionated. The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox [News] is part of that tradition — it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It's a point of view that I disagree with. It's a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world.”

“ What I'm seeing out of the Republican leadership over the last several years has been a set of policies that are just irresponsible. And we saw in their 'Pledge to America' a similar set of irresponsible policies.”

“ [The GOP Pledge promotes] the very same policies that led to the economic crisis in the first place. It is grounded in the same worn-out philosophy: cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; cut the rules for Wall Street and the special interests; and cut the middle class loose to fend for itself. That’s not a prescription for a better future. It’s an echo of a disastrous decade we can’t afford to relive.”

“After they [the Republicans] drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want to keys back. No! You can’t drive. We don’t want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out.”

"It is inexcusable [for Democrats] to stand on the sidelines [this election year, given the prospect of big Republican gains]."

“Folks [Liberal audience] wake up! This is not some academic exercise. As Joe Biden put it, Don’t compare us to the Almighty, compare us to the alternative.”

"People [Democrat voters] need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up, if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks [his voters in 2008] weren't serious in the first place.”

All delivered in that snide, haughty, condescending, cadenced, high-handed, smirking manner that typifies Obama.  I ask, do these swipes sound Presidential?