The power of lists

Clichés are important, because they're usually true. "Don't make a mountain out of a mole hill" is sage advice. "Don't piss in a cops boot unless you want to go to jail" is axiomatic. "A stone without moss has recently been rolling" doesn't quite roll off the tongue, yet the more familiar adaptation is still valid.

One of my favorites is “Don't kick a rabbit for jumping.” Even if I didn't make it up, I'd still like it. Because I have such a clever tool at my disposal, I have a unique ability to solve one of the great mysteries of our age.

What's eating Barack Obama?

The problem is, perception. Our great and wise leader, the transformative figure that spoke so much better than “stupid old George Bush" has a hard time relating to the common man. Then again we mustn't kick rabbits for jumping.

There are certain things that the powerful just don't do. If Bill Gates is walking down the street and happens to see a quarter on the sidewalk… Does he stop and pick it up? No, the two or 3 seconds it would take for him to break his stride, bend down pick the coin up and put it in his pocket before resuming his gait is worth more than $.25.

Bill Gates not picking up a quarter, is just like a non-billionaire refusing to pick out cigarettes that have not been smoked down to the filter from ashtrays or the gutter.

In President Obama's world there are some things that are just beneath him. Trivial matters that are so far below his pay grade and intellectual superiority… That he doesn't perceive of, or address them.

Because our President operates at such a high level, he needs distractions, he needs relief from the powers of acute concentration that he applies to the problems that concern him.

To help clarify the hierarchy of activities in President Obama's world please review the lists below.

Issues that are beneath him.

(Trivial matters that do not require an individual of his talent and intellect to address)

1.    Unemployment 
2.    Economic conditions
3.    Securing our borders
4.    Free enterprise
5.    National security
6.    International threats
7.    Inflation
8.    Non-unionized  employees
9.   The integrity of the United States of America

Distractions

(Recreational pursuits that relieve the pressures associated with leadership)

1. International vacations
2. Golfing on the weekends
3. Smoking
4. Throwing parties at the White House
5. Observing cultural specific holidays
6. Domestic  vacations
7. Golfing during the week
8. Getting away with Michelle
9. Photo ops with his kids
10. Planning vacations
11. Air Force One
12. Wondering what Joe Biden will say next
13. Playing basketball
14. Talking about quitting smoking

 Unique and specific things that he feels qualified to address.

(Areas of expertise President Obama focuses on to the exclusion of all other activities.)

1. Standing in front of a Teleprompter
2. Reading prepared statements
3. Saying  “Let me be clear"
4. Fundraising
5. Running for reelection

Too often people expect their leaders and elected  officials to be focused, narrowly, on their office. A second area where disappointment can occur is when an official is not capable of performing certain tasks.

“Stupid old George Bush” had difficulty with grammar and looking comfortable in front of the camera.  As a result he was vilified and mocked for over nine years.

The current President will suffer much worse fate, he will be forgotten. Like Jimmy Carter and Millard Fillmore he is, at best, the answer to a trivia question;  and at worst, ignored like a fart in a bus station.

The same chant, just change the lyrics and the message becomes all the more clear

What happened to the quality of education if students and students alone had to pay for it?

Say the money for college could only be paid from W-4 wages. That youngsters could start working as soon as five or six and be taxed at 95%. The money would be held in a “lockbox” for their educational needs 12 years in the future. At that time their juvenile and adolescent wages could be accessed in addition to any work they were doing in the time they were not going to school.

After two years of college they would be eligible for scholarships, grants and other honorarium to advance their scholastic careers.

 The nature of protests on college campuses would change.  If the students were paying their own way, they would have less time to advocate the agenda of others and would be more focused on getting the greatest benefit from their exposure to academia.

Much the same way students are very proud, and righteous about their body art and piercings, when forced to use their own money to pay for education their attention to, and acceptance of non-scholastic distractions would be muted.

The obvious long-range benefits of indoctrinating adolescents and young adults to the concept of paying for things, and more importantly only buying things of high value would bring about significant changes.

Sometimes the words taken out of context, so it should be forgiven?

What about The N Word makes it so upsetting  and inappropriate to use?


The word packs such power to represent overt racial hatred, most people - regardless of race - should not even utter it.  The hatred, prejudice and inherent violence in bedded in the word brings it on par with the overt vulgarity associated with pornographic expletives.


When the word is used in “discourse” it has been downgraded to a cliché. Something said in hatred, to express a visceral reaction and downgrade the subject to a status of nonhuman. The level of disgust and outrage is lost with over usage. It is a most unholy curse and should not be used lightly.


Some say that people “in the community” that “know what it is to be one and to called one" are indemnified and allowed to casually referred to each other as N Words.


Still, to the families that know the injustice and cruelty associated with the word it packs a primal reaction to can only be expressed as horror intermixed with the fear known only from persecution.


Yet political pundits bandy the word about as if ordering iced tea on a warm summer day. The insensitivity to the stain of oppression is forgotten in their need to make a point.  The common excuse that, we have gone beyond that period in time, that it is behind us,  is the lamest alibi to dredge from the darkest periods of man's indecency to man, a word that is designed only to terrify.


To recognize the outrage, turn on MSNBC, turn on CNN and see how many times Democrats used the word Nazi. Ask yourself,  why is this N Word so freely used when it has nothing to do with the subject.

Standing up for what you believe, showing the people the way

In a state like Oregon, were symbolism trumps reality, the legislature likes to enact proud but meaningless resolutions designed to make them feel powerful. Add to that the “writing on the wall” foreshadowing of their own grisly fates... it is only natural they would feel a parental and symbiotic relationship with the municipal employees in Wisconsin.

Below is a representation of the fine work the Oregon Democratic Party did to create a more perfect union. Keep in mind, all the problems within their own jurisdiction had been solved, so they had nothing to do but dream the dreams of utopian bliss, brought on by the strength of governmental union enrollment.

WHEREAS, the right of collective bargaining is the backbone of union strength in the United States, the “or else” against the power of  employers to fire workers who are unwilling to work for low wages and in unsafe conditions, and (Municipal codes and strict civil service standards address the status of municipal  employees, their working conditions, compensation and recourse on grievances.   The statutes and regulations supersede union contracts and are often redundant.)

WHEREAS, the 8-hour work day, the 40-hour work week, weekends off,  worker’s compensation and collective bargaining itself all began in Wisconsin, and (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,  previously known as Lew Alcinder, started his professional basketball career in the state of Wisconsin. Harley-Davidson and people watching football in sub freezing conditions with replicas of cheese on their head are among the other cultural contributions that the Dairy State has brought to our country. Citing these additional examples, offers perspective on all the wonderful things we all take for granted and have very little chance of changing between now and return of the dinosaurs.)

WHEREAS, the wages, benefits and safe working conditions negotiated by unions have translated into equal benefits for non-union workers as well as union workers and their families, and (Provided one of the greatest booms to the manufacturing efforts in China, Mexico, China and India the world has ever seen. Although Marco Polo is credited with discovering the trade route to China, they would've never started making automobiles until the UAW chased all of the jobs out of Michigan.)

WHEREAS, for over one hundred years the Democratic Party has been the staunch ally of labor unions and the working people in the United States, and (Coerced the wages from the rank-and-file and channel the money to the Democratic Party providing an effective money laundering mechanism to promote statism over innovation to the detriment of every industry represented by collective bargaining.)

WHEREAS, the Republican Party has sided with corporate power against America’s working people, beginning with the Taft Hartley Act in 1947, and most egregiously with President Reagan’s assault against the Air Traffic Controllers union in 1982, and (Next to singing Kumbaya, bashing Ronald Reagan is one of the most powerful non-solution symbolic acts we can take to identify ourselves as people from The Planet 1969. Peace, love and organic dope forever!!!)

WHEREAS, most recently, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has declared open war on Wisconsin’s unions and their established collective bargaining rights, and (Rhetoric and the use of violent images can only safely be accomplished by the anointed intellectuals who serve as bureaucrats. The use of "war", "target" and collectivist movements popularized in north-central Europe from 1939 through 1945 have become clichés. To quote Mick Jagger,  "Like a newborn baby, it just happens every day.")

WHEREAS, the fourteen Wisconsin Democratic senators have refused to return to give the Wisconsin Senate the quorum to pass the bill that would strip collective bargaining from the state’s public workers unions, and (Using Google, one could easily identified the names of these “Heroic" legislators and  recognize their humanity by incorporating their names into this, to quote George Kennedy "World shaking” document.)

WHEREAS, Tea Party Governors in Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Idaho, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma are mounting similar attacks against the unions, and (Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Idaho, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, are just like Oregon, New York, California, Wisconsin, Washington and the sad pathetic junkie passed out behind the 7/11… they don't have any money.)

WHEREAS, unions are the only counter balance against the unlimited corporate political spending unleashed by the Roberts Supreme Court’s “Citizens United v. FEC” ruling, (If only Douglas County, Oregon's outstanding unionized schools had produced someone that could've been seated on the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts [The Next Reagan] and the rule of law would be subjugated to the demands of bureaucrats and their desire for higher compensation.)

Therefore THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF OREGON RESOLVES AS FOLLOWS:

1. We affirm our solidarity with the Wisconsin State Senators (the “Wisconsin 14”) in standing up to Governor Walker’s blatant attack on Wisconsin’s unions.

2. We further affirm our support for Oregon’s unions and their collective bargaining rights.

3. We call on our State Democratic Party and county Democratic Party Central Committees to assert their support of unions and their collective bargaining rights.

Resolution written by Sara Byers.

Resolution submitted by Dean Byers, Chair, Douglas County Democratic Party.

 Sarah and Dean Byers would have had at least a dozen more resolutions, but this was produced at 11:30 AM.  Every other Friday, under the union contract, they get to leave at noon. There was no way they were going to do anything other than enjoy a beautiful spring afternoon and escape the unsafe working conditions.

They have so much in common, why don't they just get married?

Bumper stickers promote road rage. There is nothing worse than being stuck behind a Visualize World Peace hybrid driver in the midst of a traffic jam. The only thing more precious is someone with the pentathlon... Gore/Lieberman, Kerry/Edwards, Stop This Endless War, Obama/Biden and  Coexist.

Speaking of coexist and proud but meaningless slogans that can be attached to your car with glue to make you seem more popular…

 Here is a fun game you can play.

 Barack Obama and Justin Bieber, Twins?

Communication Skills:

Both use microphones to communicate highly scripted messages that neither of them composed or created. Both appear to be clean and articulate when speaking on script.

Target Audience:

Justin appeals to screaming pre 16-year-old girls who spend other peoples money, excessively. Barack fanciers are typified by screaming liberals who spend other peoples money, excessively. In both cases the people that provide the cash for the purchases are confused and embarrassed by the products they financed.

Problem Solving:

People that disagree with them are identified as “haters” then shouted down with sloganeering.

 Medical Care

Both think Canada is the Alpha and Omega and will unabashedly gush their enthusiasm for the system, despite the fact neither of them will ever use it.

Rolling Stone Interviews

Both used the archaic magazine of cultural hipness to define their  edgy identity.

Smoking Cigarettes

Rarely photographed with a fag in their hand.

Winning Prestigious Awards

Both were embroiled with controversy for the Grammys and Nobel Peace Prize. Barack won his, despite having done nothing. Justin was denied his, despite having the same amount of talent as the winner.

 Media Scrutiny

The reporters assigned to maintaining the image will go out of their way to keep it from being tarnished.

Legacy

Collecting dust on the shelf of embarrassing  moments of our lives. Barack next to the bust of Jimmy Carter and Ross Perot; while Justin will rest with Leif Garrett and Donny Osmond eight tracks.

Next Gig

Co-Hosting  a show on MSNBC.

Kind of like Jeopardy, but easier than Wheel of Fortune

Pop Quiz

Great moments in history are defined by great leaders.  Words and actions come together in a way to create perfect moments, defined by icons known throughout the world.

Suffering from athletes foot, and annoyed by poor extermination services, all the while being embarrassed he's a Russian… Khrushchev stands up at the UN, takes off his shoe slams it down  on the table and screams...

A)  Let's get pizza
B)  I thought it ordered the Bud light
C)  Мы вас похороним!  (We will  bury you!)

Correct answer is C
While portly and a fan of sausages, the Soviet leader's pallet turns to  borsch while threatening global domination, not party food. Bud Lite would not be invented for another 20 years.  Answer C was the only Russian phrase, thus the obvious solution.

After using overwhelming military force against some second rate tyrant in Turkey and Julius Caesar returned home and said...

A) Veni Vidi Vici   (I came, I saw,  I conquered)
B)  Who the hell has been messing with my crap?
C)  Brutus, if they ever make a movie of your life...

Correct answer is A
This one was also easy. A is the only answer in Latin. While B may have been said, is not historically pertinent. Motion pictures would not be invented for another 1800+ years.

During a concert in Toronto, Canada; enjoying some pharmaceutical quality opiates, Yoko Ono walked to the microphone and screeched...

A) What you call a dog with wings?.... Linda, hahhaha
B) John, Pray for Peace
C) No one understands me because I'm an artist!

Correct answer is B
While Linda Eastman may not have yet become Linda McCartney, the band Wings had yet to be formed. Answer C  Is only half correct.

With the price of gasoline set to go beyond four dollars a gallon, the country of Libya in Civil War, and nuclear reactors severely damaged by a tsunami in Japan, former editor of the Harvard Law Review and current de facto leader of the free world, Barack Obama said…

A)  What time do we tee off on Saturday?
B)  Raising money for reelection is hard to do in a recession.
C)  Michelle let's go to Brazil

From over 2000 years ago, entertainment's essential elements are still with us

Everythin' comes and goes
Marked by lovers and styles of clothes.
Things that you've held high
And told yourself were true,
Lost or changin'
As the days comes down to you.

  Joni Mitchell, It all Comes Down to You

One of the great philosophers and media critics of our time, R. C. Price, believes, “Everything that I know, that is true, I learned from  watching wrestling on TV."

Modern wrestling, as defined by Vince McMahon, is an extension of the Greek tragedies augmented with elbow drops and flying dropped kicks off the top rope.   Nowhere is this essential and ancient form of communication more obvious than in today's world of political discourse.

“Just like Hitler” is political speech for they are Republican. In the squared circle, where men get sweaty and pin each other in the center of the ring… Only to talk about it later, use the phrase “He has no right to call himself the Heavyweight Champion of the World. You saw what he did, he cheated; he used a foreign object when the ref wasn't looking…”

When wrestlers are more coherent and better spoken than politicians, the government has fallen to levels.

P.J. Crowley sounds more like the assistant  manager at the Ramada Inn asking The Rolling Stones to quit throwing the  dead hookers into the swimming pool, "Because it's scaring the other guests."

Back in the day, political discourse was a debate. Logic rule the day, rhetoric was sizzle to make the steak all that much better.

Around the time of Aristotle, wrestling was a noble profession, a chance to get all oiled up and grapple. The outcome was determined by skill and will.

Today the WWE, by their own admission, creates monsters. Extreme characters, incapable of compromising and willing to do or say anything. They exist to frighten or protect their legions of polarized fans. The spectacle and production exists to extend the performance beyond surreal. 

Is that any different from producing 30 minute films to introduce candidates to their own party?

Was candidate Barack Obama treated any differently than Hulk Hogan during the zenith of Hulk-o-mania?

Are you ready for the main event? Let's get ready to RRRRUMBLE!!!!!

Singing Do-wah ditty ditty dumb ditty do... Or just walking down the street.

Try walking down the street and counting every letter E you see. This is not a good experiment to undertake on your way to an important meeting or someplace you have to be on time.

E could stand for excuses, after all there are two of them in the word. As you walk down the street every E is a new excuse, a reason something didn't happen… Like the pony you should've gotten when you turned eight or the fact that Rachel Coughlin never paid attention to you in the 8th grade.

E could stand for excellence. There are four E's in excellence. There are also examples of excellence all around us.  In fact as popular, 1960s vintage singer, Andy Williams used to croon “the world still astounds you, each time you look at a star.”

Keep in mind reciting poetry to lions does not amuse them, it simply affirms you are en entrée, incapable of fighting back.

Your eyes and perceptions help your brain interpret the world on the other side of the skull. Little bits of information are collected then used to affirm what you feel and know to be true.

The brain craves continuity.

OTT...  what are the next two letters in sequence? It's not a trick, there is an answer, and the answer is something that you know.

As the brain searches for continuity, it swims through a sea of emotions and simultaneously walks through a desert of demanding logic. Most people claim they can't do more than one thing at a time, in reality, your brain is sparking synapses at over 1 trillion every 10th the second.

FFS... are the next three letters in sequence… What are the next two?

If you are an E means Excuse kind of person, the whole OTTFFS thing is really stupid, and just another example of the trivial crap that infects our lives and makes everything overly complicated.

If you are an E  means Expedite kind of person, you have cut and pasted the six letters in the Google search box and have found the answer using your keen knowledge of Command C, Command V and  search algorithms that allow you to forget more than half the things you used to know. The internet is all about surrendering  facts to the world of cyberspace.

If you are an E means Excellence kind of person, you've either figured it out,  are trying to remember chemical compounds from 10th grade or hoping there will be another clue in the form of a new paragraph.

You are right!

SEN... Are the next three letters, what are the next two?

Unlike the shape of your nose, the color of your eyes or the  scar by your elbow, where your brother pushed you down the stairs… Your brain has the capacity to change its physical composition several times a day.

When your brain changes, your thought patterns change.  Maybe not all of them… But enough to change perception and behavior.

Think about children under 15 months of age. When they have to eliminate… They go.

Between 15 and 24 months they understand that they should separate, themselves from the rest of the family, when they eliminate. They still manage to go all over themselves, but they recognize they should do so by themselves.

Between 24 and 60 months accidents may occur, but rarely. The individual will do everything in their power to avoid being a baby.

New behaviors are easily tied to new perceptions.

Here's another hint...

OTTFFSSEN _ _ _ _ F...  what are the four letters where the blanks have been inserted?

If you want to make a difference in someone's life, make a difference. If you want to act in a loving and caring way, act like a human.

Your brain and your behavior adapt to whoever and whatever you think you are. Changing is as simple as One, Two, Three.

From five dollars a ticket 83 years ago… Part III

Andre has a red flag, Chiang Ching's is blue
They all have hills to fly them on except for Lin Tai Yu
Dressing up in costumes, playing silly games
Hiding out in tree-tops shouting out rude names
  - Peter Gabriel, Games Without Frontiers


One of the first things you learn as a stockbroker, is that all the people willing to give $1 million for just calling and chatting for a couple of minutes… Don't have $1 million anymore.  


Jed Clampett was goodhearted and innocent.  He had tons of money, and was more than willing to help anyone. He was also a television character played by Buddy Ebsen.


When a weekly protagonist would ask for money, the Clampett clan would spring into gear and attempt to solve the problem through hard work. One of the reasons Jed had a lot of money, is because he never spent.


In Texas, a Beverly Hills Hillbillies solution was introduced to the legislature. One of the representatives authored a bill that would require every illegal citizen, upon coming into contact with law enforcement, be delivered to the home of one of the representatives serving the great state.


To quote Flatt and Scruggs... "Black gold, Texas Tea."


The beauty is in the simplicity, as humor is in brevity. Take the problem to the people most responsible and best able to solve it.


This is one program that should be expanded. To rid ourselves of the bitter divisiveness and rhetoric that is dividing our country, we should apply the "Black gold, Texas tea" concept all our problems.


Require advocates of programs to be responsible for solving them. Let them do the heavy lifting. If the Kennedy family wants the minimum wage to be $16 an hour. So be it. All they have to do is fly a bright orange flag with a number 16 and a dollar sign outside of the family compound.


People making less than $16 an hour could produce their W-2s and one of the Kennedys, tears flowing from their eyes, could offer to make up the difference from the family fortune.


Lisa Edelstein, from the TV show House MD, has become an advocate of abortion rights. All she has to do is fly a large bright green flag from her home or mansion with an AR imprinted on it.   People needing abortions would know that someone that plays a caring administrator at a teaching hospital would gladly pay for it.


When U2 goes on tour,  Bono can not only contribute all the gate receipts to international debt relief, he could also auctioned off his spectacles and/or leather jacket.


Barbra Streisand, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon who are all generally upset about everything, could just leave large buckets of money at the end of their driveways. One of their staff, would be charged with making sure that the buckets were always full.


If the socially minded philanthropists wanted to claim tax deductions, let them. If they needed more money, go on tour or start a new movie. In the case of the Kennedys, fire up the still and sell moonshine in dark alleys.


People that believed in the causes, would patronize the artistic events of their favorite celebrities. The mainstream belief that advocates new solutions from creative, talented and compassionate people be applied to social ills… Can now be tested.


It is a special obligation that our celebrity class put their money where their class is… Show us all how it should be done, redistribute the wealth in the most direct and obvious way… Do good and do it all day long.

From five dollars a ticket 83 years ago… Part II

Hans plays with Lotte, Lotte plays with Jane
Jane plays with Willi, Willi is happy again
Suki plays with Leo, Sacha plays with Britt
Whistling tunes we hid in the dunes by the seaside
Whistling tunes we're kissing baboons in the jungle

    -Peter Gabriel, Games Without Frontiers

Poor Justin Bieber, they put a microphone in front of him and asked a question or two. The answers show an incredible vulnerability on the “Celebrity Credibility Gap.” You can make excuses because he still is 6 to 18 months away from pubic hair… Yet he isn't that much different than listening to Alex Baldwin or  Binko the Dancing Clam.

When Justin was asked about the US healthcare system, he said it was terrible because his bodyguard's wife was going to have difficulties with her pregnancy and the bodyguard was going to have a hard time paying for it.

Justin being fabulous, was perhaps unaware that he didn't hired a Canadian bodyguard… The Canadian bodyguard would be covered under their universal healthcare.

Justin being such a unique performer (so much more unique than Donny Osmond or Leif Garrett) could using his own money, provide for any short fall in funding.  Better yet provide a more generous benefit package to his goons and staff.

When Sarah Jessica Parker and her cleavage were asked about the safety net for the poor,  and she responded that her aunt and uncle lived in poverty and there were no programs to help them.

Because Sarah was obviously busy, she could've asked Justin  Bieber to let her family live in his basement, until they could get Canadian citizenship, and then at least be somewhat  covered... or instead of figuring out which clever pun could be inserted in the next episode of "SiTC"… She could have demanded the studio make them "Accessory Wranglers" For this series she produced.

Sheryl Crow followed Larry David's wife around to promote the idea that a single sheet of toilet paper, per bowel movement, was the only way to heal the planet and stop global warming.

Because of this cornucopia of interesting and often poorly conceived commentary from the celebrity class, there needs to be systems and controls...  or the directors of biotechnology and pharmaceutical development firms need to go on tour with banjos and Frisbee catching dogs to entertain and delight stadiums full of screaming fans. In many cases, their lack of talent would be less obvious than the sophomoric comments of singers and actors.