Things aren't that bad.

A lot of the pundit class are always saying "It's not that bad." George Will and David Brooks love to swing that way. It usually means some vareation on "Shut-up and be glad you have a job." Now when I say it it's because while the fight goes on things do get better once and awhile. I just stumbled across this video by accident, but give it a watch. I don't care about Hunter Thompson grizzled hack writer and faux tough guy nor do I care about the hells angel hack humane being and faux tough guy. What facinates me about this is the studio audience. The last 2 minutes are amazing.



If you still don't know what I am talking about you might want to give yourself a gut check. Since when is it hilarious to talk about beating your wife, ecspecially when your buddy actually did the deed. Since when would a television host allow that to go unchallanged? Plus he cuts off the one person, Thompson, who seems to find the "beat women" thing offensive. That tape is only 40 years old. Where's Oprah when you need her?

So we are evolving. We may be trigger happy apes with narsistic personality disorder that write women tweaking blogs, but we are light years ahead of that studio audience. Not being a wife beater is no reason to pat yourself on the back, but it is an improvement over actually doing it then thinking it is perfct audience entertainment. To PC? I don't think so. So here's to us evolving even if we have to keep trying. Makes me want some cold beer and some grown-up food.

Mmmm! processed meat!

Don't you get tired of the usual beer food? I do. So today we are going to make pate. There is an accent mark over the e, but I am keyboard illiterate. There are several kinds but we are going for a classic silky pate which is really a dip that will stop you heart. Then because Erin asked nicely and I am feeling good about everyone being so evolved we'll do a country style tureen.

Moonbat.

I guess if you are reading this blog you know or figured out that I am a kind of a left wing moon-bat type person. Truth. On the other hand I don't like granola, never wear birckenstocks, think incorporating is a valuable financial tool, and love a little hedonism once and awhile. I just think companies and governments need rules to keep them in line. I also don't like this:

1. Nestle
2. Nestle again.
3. Chiquita
4. Chiquita(United Fruit)
5. Chiquita again
6. Shell Oil
7. Debeers
8. Massy Energy
9. The American Work Place
10. Union Carbide

 Take a minute, peruse a few of the links, see why I don't sign on to the uncontrolled free market. I bet neither do you. So I guess the real question is how much of a moon-bat are you? This stuff isn't going away tomorrow, but it will never go away unless we try to stop it.

Make the Call, I know you'll make the call.

You: You're walking down the street. You're coming from your work. You're coming from the gym. You're coming from your tea-party rally. You're in a hurry. You're late for dinner. You're meeting the hot trainer for drinks. You're late to your anti-socialism bible group. Hustle and bustle, it's the American way. "Gotta move, got places to be, better hurry, gonna cut through the ally,  can't delay....

Him: Face down. It's dark but there's blood. He's not moving. His breathing sounds funny.

You: Damn, the hot trainer better understand. You pull out your cell. You dial 911.

You: Then you call your, significant other, trainer, bible group. You're going to be late. You have to wait for the police and the ambulance. You don't move him, somewhere you heard not to move people, so you cover him with your jacket.

Him: Not moving.

You: The police arrive with the paramedics. You wait. They're busy. Time passes. You know the trainer went home. The police want a statement. Finally they let you go. You socialized medicine loving Euro-trash loser! What?

Stone Soup

If you make it, make it good

                                             (Midori)


Well it's friday(Woo Hoo!) and payday(Woo Hoo!). Maybe you are unemployed though. Maybe you just aren't getting the hours you'd like, or maybe that raise is on hold until the banks decide to lend money again. Don't be depressed, stretch those dollars with the magic of stone soup! Woo Hoo! stone soup. All you need is a pot and a large clean stone to make a party in your mouth.

Get up! Stand up!

Today I went to the Lawrence court house to offer moral support for a friend that is facing eviction. When I arrived at the front door there was a line that snaked its way out onto the sidewalk and down the street. Being a good American, used to being herded, I took my place at the end and sort of let my mind wander as we all made our slow shuffle to the infernal gate ahead. We were a motley assortment of the raggedy unemployed, young mothers pushing carragies, gangbangers or gangbanger wanna-bes, worried looking suburbanites shuffling papers, stubby bald dudes there to offer support, even an occasional suit and tie. I'm guessing that some small percentage of my line mates were not going home tonight, but I promise you that everyone in that line was going home at least one day older and a few hours poorer. There was another door, but that was a strictly suit and tie affair, a no waiting I have a law degree, door.

The woman and the babies mostly stayed on the first floor, family court. Restraining orders, child support, DSS stuff. There were way too many of them. I guess if you wanted to you could work up enough rage to get pissed at them. After all they were mostly spanish (illegal), mostly single (tramps), and mostly poor (lazy), mostly young (welfare queens) with their kids (bastards) in tow. You could get mad I guess, if you were Limbaugh, Hannity, or Beck. If you were simply evil. All I could do was feel sad. Most of them just looked beaten down. No one talked. No one smiled. Everyone just waited. Every once and awhile a little one would start crying, and there was a vague hum from the suits conferring at the corners of the hall, but it was almost eerily quiet. You didn't know, but you guessed that there were likely very few good out comes happening on the first floor. Once you bring the kids to court how is it going to get better?

The gangbangers all went to the third floor. They were mostly young, mostly hispanic, with a few whites and blacks in the mix. There was one teen in a suit with his Mom that looked as out of place as Obama at a tea party rally. Everyone over 30 seemed to be male, falling into 2 categories. Either they were in cheap suits ( don't woman lawyers do criminal cases?) or they looked like they crawled out of a dumpster. Apparently in Lawrence all crime is committed by young latinos and skid row bums.

The second floor was me and my friend. It was the only floor where people looked scared. There was a spanish speaking woman at a table which sported a sign that said "Free Legal Advice". It didn't say "free legal counsel". I guess a ten minute pow wow before you discuss complicated mortgage law in front of a judge is better than nothing. (Not!) Here everything was on the line. your home, which represents what? 10 years of your labor? 20? When you see people that are about to lose everything, who can't afford a lawyer, who get a 10 minute pow wow so they can take on the best lawyers that TARP money can buy you have to start looking around for Dante. The banks can't even always prove that the have clear title on the house. Shame on us.

Our case was moved to another day because the judge had to recuse himself. My friend, well, he makes himself known in the community. So today I'm not hungry. I need a recipe for the souls in limbo on the first floor. I need a recipe for the souls embracing hell on the third floor. I need a recipe for broken souls trying to hang on to their lives on the second floor. I need a recipe for my friend that is going to lose everything. There is nothing in any of my books or my smarty pants approach to life that is going to make today better for any of those people.

Revolting

I guess this is revolution post part two. Revolutions, only sometimes a good thing, never a safe thing, always a deadly thing. What's up with the camel?



Of coarse you can't have a revolution without Rebels. In other places, other countries, a rebel is just a regular person who has had enough and is willing to risk everything to make things better. Even then a lot of times they don't get " better" they just get "different". Better is always out there, sometimes unrecognizable, sometimes out of reach, but worth fighting for. Different is just another word for change, and change happens all the time whether we like or not. So rebellion is not a narcissistic hissy fit by a bunch of spoiled arrested adolescence, it's unpredictable and dangerous. Unless you grab it and make it a lifestyle.



I wonder if the founding fathers had a cool hand shake and a hip attitude? Those darn 50's, quiet, safe, repressive, how could you not rebel? and if everyone was into it how could corporations not co-op the images for a profit. Of coarse there was real stuff to rage against. Civil rights  and the Vietnam war were an actual call to arms... so why do we just remember this guy?



Pretty cool huh? Rebellion as pick-up method. Nothing says Fight the Power like ruining a dinner party to impress the hot girl! Putz! Of coarse once you start making something into a commodity you might as go all in.