House of Burgess

Hypocrisy served in a mesquite Texas treason sauce

2009-04-16T22:32:53Z

"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came."
- Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.

Chuck Norris wants Texas to secede from the United States of America so he can become its president.
That is not a joke I heard or made up. It is very real.
“On Glenn Beck’s radio show last week, I quipped in response to our wayward federal government, ‘I may run for president of Texas.’” wrote Norris on last month on the Web site “World Net Daily.” “That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state.”
That alone might not be enough to make anything more than make a blip on the odd news radar, but apparently the current head of the state isn’t ruling out the idea.
“Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax ‘tea party’ (April 15) with his stance against the federal government and for states’ rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, ‘Secede!’,” stated a portion of an Associated Press story. “An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall -- one of three tea parties he was attending across the state -- that officials in Washington have abandoned the country's founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt...Later, answering news reporters’ questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.
“There's a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot.”
Really? Then go on and do something then. Please. I’d love to see you try. Keep talking greasy. We’ll make like Honest Abe and school you to what it means to be a part of the Union like it’s 1865 up in here. It’ll be a grand time.
I double, nay, triple dog dare you.
Don’t believe me? Then consider the prophetic words of another Texas governor, one Sam Houston.
“Let me tell you what is coming,” he said in 1860. “After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives you may win Southern independence, but I doubt it. The North is determined to preserve this Union.”
What’s really appalling to me is how this kind of talk went out and everyone on both sides of political spectrum didn’t immediately call them out on their frankly treasonous comments. Sure, a group of Texas House Democrats, including Democratic Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, called the comments anti-American, but where, oh where, are those über-“patriotic” countrymen who would, and have before, just as soon have chanted “USA! USA! USA!” until any dissent was drowned out on this one?
And another thing: I clearly remember the firestorm of faux-outrage that would errupt every time an entertainer would reportedly threaten to move if a certain candidate won the election.
“Before the election actor Robert Redford said if Bush won, he’d leave the country for Ireland,” wrote Corey Deitz on the Web site “About.com” on Nov. 17, 2004. “Well, syndicated talker, Glenn Beck, has raised over $7,000 and purchased airline tickets for him for a December flight. Beck’s website says, ‘We realized after we started this fund raiser that we didn't have a way to contact Robert Redford with the good news about his plane tickets. So we are now collecting additional funds to purchase a full page advertisement in his home town news paper, the Provo Daily Herald.’”
Sheesh. Imagine what would have happened if Redford had threatened to take Utah with him?
They couldn’t have gotten their torches and pitchforks together fast enough, that’s what would have happened.
What I love about my country is that we don’t have to share each others values to live here. In fact, that’s fundamentally the only thing we have to agree on.
And if the future president of Norrisland and anyone else have a problem with that, we’ll have it their way...again.

Cloning road-worn hope

2009-01-31T22:20:11Z

If you’re like me, every glance at the headlines this past week was just one more stomach-turning journey to terror and back.
Layoffs, water shortages, IOUs coming from the state: it just didn’t seem to end, didn’t it?
But I have hope. I have hope because I saw the following story on the wire in the midst of my despair:
“A Boca Raton, Fla. couple got a new dog, and it's just like their old dog,” stated a portion of the Associated Press story released Thursday. “Not just the same breed and gender, but the same DNA. Nina and Edgar Otto picked up their cloned yellow lab puppy at the Miami International Airport Monday night. Lancelot Encore was cloned from the DNA of the Ottos' late dog Lancelot, which died of cancer in January 2008.”
And why does this give me hope? Keep reading:
“Guessing that pet cloning would one day be possible, the Ottos had DNA samples of their dog frozen five years ago,” stated the story. “The Ottos paid $155,000 in a San Francisco biotech firm's dog-cloning auction last July. BioArts International created Lancelot Encore in South Korea, where he was born 10 weeks ago. The Ottos say he's the first single-birth, commercially cloned puppy in the United States.”
The fact that people are still willing to pay for completely non-essential items like cloned pets signals to me that we may make it out of this thing yet. Say what you want about the Great Depression, even if they had the technology to clone I doubt people would have stepped out of the bread lines long enough to even think about throwing money at such things.
But in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s economic downturn? You’d better believe they’d be cloning things left and right if they got their glittery hands on that technology. And that’s what I feel like we’re going through right now.
And just when I thought this story was the exception that proved the rule, I found out the next day that Fender Guitars has released a new series of “Road Worn” guitars. The part of this equation that caught my attention was the fact that Fender was banking on the fact that people would be willing to throw down extra money to have their new guitars look like someone had played the stuffing out of them.
“Some things get better with age and Fender knows it,” read the product’s description on the Web site proguitarshop.com. “That’s why we are proud to introduce the new Fender Road Worn Guitars for 2009. These guitars are perfectly aged for that broken in feel and look. The vibe from these guitars is unmistakably cool like that old Chevy Nova parked in the garage. The Fender Road Worn guitars look, feel, and play like they have been on stage for 40 years with fretboard wear, arm wear on the finish, and aged hardware and pickups. Pick one up and it feels like your best friend.”
Why bother actually putting in the work required to make the instrument look worn when you can buy your new best friend pre-damaged? Win-win, right?
“When your fingers come to rest on the strings they feel like they have been there for years,” the description continues. “Every detail and nuance of the Road Worn guitars is reminiscent of the bygone days when rock was rock and scars were proudly displayed as a badge of experience...The Fender Road Worn guitars are lovingly distressed (aged) in order to create a guitar with a particular vibe and feel. Sometimes a brand new guitar just doesn’t sound or feel right until it’s had a beer spilled on it or has been dropped on the floor.”
Yes, we are still America where sometimes we want our new products to look like they’ve been used even when buying something that’s actually pre-owned might be cheaper and have actual blemishes.
See? It can’t be all bad!
On the off chance that those two pieces of information don’t cheer you up, here’s something I just read today in a Fortune Magazine story entitled “Crisis into opportunity” in which management guru Jim Collins explains why now is no time for self-pity.
“I don't care how hard this period is,” reads the last line of the interview. “You have to have the combination of believing that you will prevail, that you will get out of this, but also not be the Pollyanna who ignores the brutal facts. You have to say that we will be in this for a long time and we will turn this into a defining event, a big catalyst to make ourselves a much stronger enterprise. Our characters are being forged in a burning, searing crucible.”

See? I'm not crazy...

2009-01-28T19:58:50Z

A long time ago on this very blog, I suggested that we as a country institute mandatory newspaper subscriptions for everyone in the country with a net, after-tax income of $30,000 a year.
Now, after seeing the following story today, I feel somewhat vindicated:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Friday that France will offer free newspaper subscriptions to teens, in an effort to increase readership among the young and give a boost to the ailing print industry.
Sarkozy plans to offer French citizens who have just turned 18 their pick of any of the nation’s major news publications for a year; the publishers will provide the papers, and the state will absorb delivery fees.

The measure is intended to encourage young people to embrace print. In a speech to publishers Sarkozy asserted, “The habit of reading the press is learned very young.” The French president hopes the move will give falling newspaper sales a boost and give the industry time to adapt to the “changing media landscape,” according to the Associated Press. The government is also increasing its support of delivery fees and will spend more on newspaper advertisements.

Some are skeptical of Sarkozy’s motives, citing his personal ties to the media industry. In France, he is known as the “télé-président” because of his preoccupation with how he is portrayed publicly, as well as his apparent influence over certain media sectors.

In October, Sarkozy launched a crusade to save the French press, which included loosening restrictions on ownership. At the time, he was criticized for attempting to curry favor with the media giants such as the CEO of France’s largest private TV channel, who happens to be Sarkozy's close friend.

Cheer up, Republicans!

2009-01-24T00:25:09Z

As I watched the inaugural parade make its slow drive from the steps of Congress to the White House on Tuesday, I saw that I had a new voicemail on my cell phone.
“Hey Rob,” I heard my Dad’s voice say as I pressed the device to my head. “I wanted to know why we had to say at the coronation of King Obama, ‘long live the King.’ I don’t understand. Thanks. Bye.”
Later, when I called him back he had some more questions.
“I always thought Jesus would come back, but can you tell me why he decided to take the train when he did?” he asked sarcastically, referring to President Barack Hussein Obama’s one-day “whistle stop” inaugural train journey from Philadelphia to the U.S. capital.
My spidey-sense tells me that many other conservatives besides my father feel this way. All the stars of stage and screen in addition to a crowd of up to 2 million people gathered to witness the ceremony to much fanfare. Compare that with the protests and egg-throwings at the last two Bush swearing-in ceremonies and some hurt feelings on the other side of the aisle are inevitable.
In an effort to to soothe some of those raw nerves, here’s a few excerpts from Obama’s speech that should give every American cause for celebration. (And not just because we have a Democrat in office and not just because our new president is the first mixed-race leader we’ve ever had):
“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”
Sweeping declarations, lip service and bluster have become a hallmark of inaugural speeches. This fact is made evident by a simple scanning of previous addresses. Presidents of yore seemed compelled to recount the finer points of their policies in excruciating detail and then some.
For example, President #9, William Henry Harrison spat out snore-worthy sentences like:
“If the opinion of the most approved writers upon that species of mixed government which in modern Europe is termed monarchy in contradistinction to despotism is correct, there was wanting no other addition to the powers of our Chief Magistrate to stamp a monarchical character on our Government but the control of the public finances.”
His address, delivered in a snow storm, ran for an hour and forty-five minutes and ended up killing him as he was felled by pneumonia a month later.
In effort to be remembered for more than just dying from inflammatory illnesses of the lung, recent presidents have learned to deliver punchy one-liners that soar high above things like detail and explanation. These generalities often prove meaningless as soon as they actually begin their terms, with some seemingly on a mission to systematically pull apart every promise they made after reciting the oath.
Obama, though, proved true to his word on this point. After only 24 hours in office he issued an order to “close the Guantanamo prison, ban torture and upend Bush administration polices on terror suspects,” according to the Associated Press.
Three cheers for habeas corpus!
“We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers.”
During the holiday seasons of the last decade we’ve known each other, my old college roommate will often complain to me that there aren’t any holidays that allow atheists like him to celebrate on a federally-recognized basis.
“How can you ask people to celebrate the belief in nothing?” I would ask him without fail every December.
“That’s not the point,” he’ll say. “It’s not fair.”
Well, Jonathan, we’re not there, yet, but the above quote represents a good start.
True, Obama picked Rev. Rick Warren to deliver his innaugural invocation and he himself quoted scripture in his address.
But at least giving a shout-out to the approximately 52 percent of the world population that adheres to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism or non-religious beliefs has already gone a long way to repairing some bridges.
“This crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”
Taken alongside recent presidents and contenders for the job, Obama looks downright poor:
• According to Bush’s tax returns for the year 2007, his net worth was recorded as high as $19,374,000.
• Hillary Clinton, former first lady and Obama rival turned newly minted secretary of state, reported a 2007 net worth of up to $51,216,999.
• Bush’s last opponent for office, Sen. John Forbes Kerry, reported a net worth in 2004 that ranged anywhere between $236,689,485 to $312,460,164, making him the richest senator that year.
• Sen. John McCain, Obama’s Republican rival for the White House, had...oh, why do I even need to bother? (The man couldn’t even remember how many houses he owned.)
• Obama, meanwhile, reported a relatively modest personal net worth of between $2,022,016 to $7,356,000 in 2007, a fraction of what the average senator reported that year.
Having someone in office who has not made their life’s goal to amass as much money as possible before expiring is critical in a time when, according to one report, the richest 2 percent of adults in the world now own more than half the world’s wealth. (And counting.)
“We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.”
Do my ears deceive me? Did he just say...Yes, he did! He said the word “science”! We have a president who believes in science! USA! USA! USA!
“The world has changed, and we must change with it.”
Amen.

Obviously, this means he should be impeached immediately

2009-01-20T23:56:19Z

After watching his stirring inauguration speech, I found this story on the McClatchy News Service blog:

Oops, Obama makes first presidential mistake Oops. Just seconds into his term, President Barack Obama made a mistake about the history of his new office. In the second paragraph of his inaugural address, Obama said, “Forty four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.” Sorry. While Obama IS the 44th president, he is actually only the 43rd American to take the oath. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms. He is counted as the 22nd president, serving from 1885 to 1889. He won back theoffice four years later, and is counted also as the 24th president, serving again from 1893-1897. Two presidents – but one American.

I might actually miss George W. Bush

2009-01-17T20:33:24Z

“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.”
- President George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008.
While cruising around on the Internets one day I happened upon a Wikipedia article entitled “Criticisms of George W. Bush.”
Among other items of interest, the page contained the following passage pertaining to the historical view of the Bush White House:
In 2008, the History News Network conducted an unscientific poll among 109 professional historians. That poll found that, among those professional historians, 98 percent believe that the George W. Bush presidency is a failure, and that 61 percent believe it to be the worst in history. This quote from one of the respondents is an example of historians’ reasons for the low ranking:
“No individual president can compare to the second Bush. Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”
Even as I nod my head in agreement at everything you just read, and as appalled as I’ve been about the direction our country has headed in over the last eight years, some small part of me will miss George W. Bush.
I’m sure that part of this feeling might have to do with familiarity. When Bush was first sworn in on that rainy Jan. 20, 2001, I was 17-years-old and was just starting my final semester at Mitchell High School in Mitchell, Ind. Eight years later, that seems like a lifetime away. And when you add his father’s term in office to the mix, it all adds up to just under half my entire life my president’s name has been a four letter word normally used to define shrubbery.
But I’m inclined to think it goes deeper than that.
As our President Elect Barack Obama said in an interview with CNN on Friday, “ (I) always thought he was a good guy.”
Not only does he seem like some congenial middle manager you’ve already meet a thousand times at your local sports bar, he’s also self-deprecating and occasionally pretty funny, which I appreciate.
“Being able to laugh at yourself is a rare quality in a leader,” wrote Jacob Weisberg in his Jan. 12 Slate Magazine article “W.’s Greatest Hits.” “It’s one thing George W. Bush can do that Bill Clinton couldn’t.”
Perhaps we’ve misunderestimated Dubya.
Who else had the audacity to ask: “Is our children learning?” Who else alerted us to the growing epidemic of OB/GYNs who “aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country?”
I mean, the man knows “how hard it is for you to put food on your family” for pity’s sake.
His experimental jazz take on the English language aside, I think the moment my heart actually went out to the self-proclaimed “war president” was on May 1, 2003.
As Bush, in full flight suit costume, landed on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln underneath the giant red, white and blue “Mission Accomplished” banner, I am positive I know what what was going through his head.
He wanted his President Whitmore-flies-plane-against-the-aliens scene from the end of the movie “Independence Day.”
He wanted his Gen. Douglas MacArthur “I have returned” speech.
In short, he wanted his moment.
And, really, who can blame him? Who doesn’t want at least once in their life to announce your great victory to the world in full costume while your troops cheer wildly around you?
But, sadly, as we all know, the great victory speech turned out to be a bit premature.
I guess I can’t feel too bad for Bush, though. According to an Associated Press article published Thursday, “he'll receive a pension of almost $200,000 to tide him over in his first year of retirement in his new home in Dallas.”
And he won’t just have his gigantic golden parachute to help ease the transition, he’ll also have his family, whom he thanked in the first three paragraphs of his farewell speech, the completion of his memoirs and his (sure to be chock-full of truthiness) presidential library at Southern Methodist University.
Honestly, though, I hope he does get to relax and spend some more time with family, because after all, as he himself once said, that’s “where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”

Someone has turned my beat into a TV show

2009-01-16T19:54:39Z

I was reading some wire stories this morning and I stumbled across this otherwise innocuous story about a new television starring Amy Poehler. See if you can guess why my heart skipped a beat as I read through the description:

Amy Poehler and Greg Daniels Talk About New Series And no, it still doesn't have a name. by Matt Fowler January 15, 2009 - The new show, which was once thought to be an Office spin-off, starring Amy Poehler and Rashida Jones is now starting to take shape. There's a script for the pilot and we can now take a look at the story of this new single-camera mockumentary project from Executive Producer Greg Daniels. The show will be centering on the minutia and the mundane bureaucracy of local government, like those boring town hall meetings you might see on local cable TV access channels. Poehler will play Leslie Knope, a mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana. She has aspirations, probably delusions, of getting promoted up through government. She's a more likeable character than say…The Office's Michael Scott (Steve Carell). Leslie is a big reader…Michael Scott is not a big reader," remarked Daniels at the recent TCA press tour. It was said that Leslie will not be as dumb or unintentionally mean as Michael, but, as Poehler stated, it will be "easy to humiliate her." "She wants to run with the big boys, so you've got to take the hits," Poehler added. Leslie's goal is to help get all the permits and paperwork passed to build up a new playground in her hometown, and she's got dreams of her success leading into an eventual promotion for her. "She's an opportunist and very ambitious. She's struggling to find herself in a 'man's world,'" said Poehler. "She looks to a lot of women in politics for inspiration. She looks to them as her heroes." The central joke here is that it takes an unbelievably, and comically, long time to get anything done on a local level, when it comes to government. Daniels told the story of a Claremont, California bureaucrat finally cutting the ribbon on a park that had taken eighteen years to get built for that town. Poehler's character mistakenly thinks that her playground project might take as long as…three whole months. And that that would even be a long time for her. Little does she know… Rashida Jones (The Office) and Aziz Ansari (Human Giant) are also along for the ride in this show, which may at one point actually been considered as an Office spin-off. Daniels stated "There is an idea for a spin-off with other Office characters, but once Amy came on board, we set that aside." There still are talks of actual Office characters getting their own show however. "I am talking to people about it," said Daniels. "Steven Merchant came back and directed an episode this season and he and I were talking about it." When asked if this show was meant to be a commentary on the "last eight years," Executive Producer Michael Schur said that the show was "not about politics as much as it is about government. We didn't have an axe to grind here." Schur added "It's not about a specific party or a specific agenda. Poehler herself expressed her excitement in being able to play a single character for a while on TV. She expressed that the chance to "get invested in someone very specific and who is very real is great." "I was excited about the idea of being able to turn down the volume and sit with a character for a while."

So apprently someone has taken my beat (local government involving California and Indiana) and turned into a T.V. show. And since it's by the creators of "The Office" (which I really enjoy) and stars one of my favorite female comedians I have to say I'm speechless. I absolutely cannot wait until this show comes out. I feel like someone's been following me around while I cover my beat and then made an awesome mockumentary television show about it. Wow.

High-pressure driving in a low-pressure storm

2009-01-10T04:12:33Z

When I was younger, I used to ask people how they would want to die if given a choice.
I got a myriad of answers of course, but after a while I determined that no matter how hard I thought about it, I’d probably never expect to die from the thing that ultimately did me in.
This thought came to mind recently as I attempted to steer my disabled sedan down a rain-soaked highway while a California Highway Patrol car pushed me down the road at speeds approaching 60 miles-per-hour.
Let me back up.
A few weeks ago, I had been planning a trip to the Bay Area. My heart sunk as I watched report after report predict that the day I had scheduled for my excursion would bring some of the heaviest rains in months to the region.
I hoped against all reason that the storms would pass us by and the rays of sunshine would chase away the increasingly ominous bank of clouds streaming over the mountains.
Spoiler alert: They didn’t.
As I peeked out my window the morning of the big day, the sound of fat raindrops hitting the glass with machine-gun intensity made me contemplate a change of plans. However, it was at this point that my reasons for going on the trip drifted from “fun voyage” to a “mission.”
As my fiancée Ash and I barreled down the highway, the rain slapping against my windshield in sheets seemed to be forming into a taunting laugh that started as a polite chuckle and ended up as a full-on teary-eyed guffaw by the time I reached the Oakland area.
We were almost there when I made a big mistake. Thinking the four open lanes on the right-hand side of the highway represented a golden opportunity to pass the line of slow-moving cars bunched up in the carpool lanes, I sped through the great open divide with as much gusto as my soaking-wet four-cylinder engine could muster.
That’s when the real trouble started.
About half-a-second afterwards I realized why no one else had followed me into the fray: the open space was really a foot-and-a-half deep pond that extended over nearly the entire breadth of the roadway. I suddenly comprehended my mistake and tried to get out of the puddle as fast as I could. I could hear my poor car screaming “Are you kidding me right now?” as the engine sputtered and wheezed. I was just out of the worst of it when the inner workings of the automobile inevitably gave way to the rushing water spraying from down below.
This was not good.
Suddenly, we found ourselves blocking one of the only two open lanes of traffic. People behind us began to honk angrily as if we didn’t know that our car had died in the middle of the road.
“Thanks,” I said, waving at them with five fingers as they passed by, returning my gesture with four less. “Thanks so much for telling me. And a good day to you, sir!”
Not knowing what else to do, I dialed 9-1-1 and asked for help. Just as I began talking to the operator I heard a knock on the door.
I hung up and opened the door to a saintly truck driver who offered to push off to a dry spot on the shoulder a few feet ahead. I gladly obliged and as I put the car in ‘neutral’ I heard the kiss of our bumpers. We only continued this bump and grind for about 100 yards before coming to rest on a deserted patch of asphalt far away from the puddle.
After thanking him profusely, he went on his way and I tried to figure out how long I had to wait before I could start my car again. I determined that I had to let it dry out, so Ash and I decided to wait a few minutes longer before trying it again.
Then came another rapping at the door.
Apparently while we had been stopped, a CHP officer had pulled up behind us. He, like the truck driver, told us to put the car in ‘neutral’, put on our seatbelts and roll down the windows to await further instructions.
Unlike the truck driver, he made us go faster than I would have signed up for.
As we began moving, I held the steering wheel with white knuckles, using all my might to control a car without power steering or brakes. The officer began shouting directions through the amplified speaker attached to the outside of his cruiser.
As I strained my ears to catch his garbled speech I began wondering if it was too late to make a last will and testament.
As my speedometer passed 20 then 30 then 40, I saw that we were coming to the top of a hill and we didn’t seem to be slowing down, if anything, we seemed to be gaining speed.
As we crested the top of the hill I saw a slow-moving cadre of cars in front of us. We were going roughly the same speed as them, but I figured if any one of them decided to slow down or stop in front of us there wouldn’t be much I could do except double-check my seatbelt and re-open a dialogue with my creator.
This is it, I thought as we passed the 50 mark on the dials, this is how it ends.
I tapped the brakes ever so slightly in an effort to curb our increasingly rapid descent.
“No brakes!” came the suddenly clear voice from behind us. The fact that the officer would be the top piece of bread in the Rob/Ash sandwich that would be instantly constructed if we did crash into one of the cars in front of us didn’t give me much comfort.
We were nearly three-fourths of a mile from the start of our police-assisted ride when we were told to turn off on the first exit. The cruiser pulled back a bit as I decelerated as quickly as I could. We finally rolled to a stop in the parking lot of a nice-looking hotel. The officer told us to wait a few minutes and then sped off.
It took us a few moments of bewildered silence to realize that we were still residents of this mortal coil.
We walked to the lobby of the hotel and wondered aloud to each other if the officer in question had always wanted to try something like that, but just decided that since it was an emergency situation with no one else around it might be a fun thing to try.
About an hour later, after consuming some vending machine snacks and hotel-approved reading material I tried the car and it started right up. I left the engine running for a few minutes as plumes of steam escaped out the back. After driving by the dilapidated store we had nearly died trying to get to, we decided we’d rather not chance it by leaving our car in a shady part of Oaktown.
Later that night, on our way back to Ukiah, we decided to stop in Santa Rosa and do some shopping there. We saw a movie, went out to eat and tried to make up for shock and horror of the rest of the day. We actually had a pretty good time.
So, obviously, the lesson here is never go further than an hour in any direction from your home. Ever. There’s just too much danger out there.

Preparing for metaphorical war

2009-01-04T02:14:27Z

As I write this it is Jan. 3 and I haven’t broken any of my New Year’s 2009 resolutions yet.
But, then again, the day isn’t over either.
In past years this is about the time I start making deals with myself and generally slipping on all the high-minded promises I made the year prior.
I always start out with the best of intentions that this year would be the 365-day (or in the case of 2008, 366-day) period where I’d really break out of my well-worn old habits.
But then again video games and other electronic distractions around the house are always fun and they don’t generally require that you better yourself in any way to enjoy them.
But this year--no more.
In the spirit of my New Year’s resolution to write and read for pleasure every single day without fail I went on a quest for a yet-to-be read (by me) classic that could offer some sage advice for the task that lay ahead.
I ended up with “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu.
I’ve been meaning to read this 6th Century Chinese military treatice for some time now, but when I discovered that almost every book of note in the public domain is on the Internet for free somewhere, I decided now was the time to strike. (See, I’m already using those military words.)
I’ve also been interested in perusing the pages of this text in part because I’ve been fascinated by the onslaught of business-oriented self-help books that have sprung from the ideas laid out in the book. Examples include, but are certainly not limited to: “Sun Tzu: The Art of War for Managers; 50 Strategic Rules,” “The Art of War for Executives: Ancient Knowledge for Today's Business Professional” and my personal favorite “The Warrior Lawyer: Powerful Strategies for Winning Legal Battles.”
I find it interesting that this is the one classic book that everyone in the business community has decided to latch on to. (Now the real challenge would be taking something like “Madame Bovary” into a business self-help book, but then again I once saw a book called “The Tao of Pooh” so anything’s possible I guess.)
After reading the original text I can understand what they were going for, but it’s beyond my bounds of my imagination of how anyone could apply such sentences as, “if forced to fight in a salt-marsh, you should have water and grass near you, and get your back to a clump of trees,” into business culture. (I can only guess as to what metaphor would encompass all those elements into a cohesive theme.)
Even though every word of the tome isn’t a solid gold gift it does have some pretty timeless nuggets to offer me in my journey:
• “According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one’s plans.”
One of the reasons I’ve had so much trouble keeping myself on the grind reading-wise is that I constantly set too high a goal for myself from the beginning and throw the towel in when my plan isn’t working. I’ve also carried a foolish belief that I have to finish every book I start. (Maybe this means I should read something less than a thousand pages for my first book of the year.)
• The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.
I’m convinced that 2009 is going to be a hard year financially, so I’m all about managing my money better. I don’t know about you, but every time I check the mail I feel like I’m doing battle with my bills. My resolution in this regard to not be past due on any of my bills. Hopefully this does not mean selling any of my organs for straight cash. (Yet.)
• Prohibit the taking of omens, and do away with superstitious doubts. Then, until death itself comes, no calamity need be feared.
Oh, stress, how I’ve tangoed with you. I’m done with stressing out. I’m over the amount of stomach acid I have on a daily basis. That’s really what I’m fighting against this year: fear. I’m done with it. (Unless the band Creed somehow pulls a Guns ‘N Roses and unexpectedly releases another album this year. Then the fear will return.)
So check for my new self-help book: “The Art of Rob: How to Crush Your New Year’s Resolutions.” (Now in paperback.)

You ain't seen bouncin' back

2008-12-28T04:51:02Z

I had a slice of pizza halfway in my mouth when I figured out how I was going to deal with 2009.
It occurred to me last week when I was back home in Indiana. I was having dinner with my friend Christine at a restaurant that had opened in my absence.
“You know why I can’t get anything done?” she asked me as I began to tackle the first slice of the personal-sized pie. “I start out with a list of all the things I have to do and then by the time I get to the end of my day I’ve done all these other things that I didn’t expect to so I don’t even want to look at things like the dishes.”
This is a feeling I know all too well.
“I know, right?” I said after swallowing. “I always know it’s bad when I start counting things like going to the bathroom on the list of accomplishments I can tick off during the course of a day.”
I think this conversation is a microcosm of how I thought about 2008 before it started.
I wasn’t under any illusions that it would be an easy year exactly, but I did have some vague idea that completing the large goals I had set out for myself would come to pass just as a matter of course.
That, as you might guess, did not happen.
Just getting through the day, the week, the month, the year was all I could do to keep my head above water, let alone strive to complete the hazy idea of the lofty goals I had dancing around the corners of my mind.
As a result, I’m approaching 2009 in a whole new way: through the eyes of currently incarcerated rapper Mystikal.
Mystikal, otherwise known as Gulf War veteran Michael Tyler, toiled for a few years in the early 1990’s on southern rap label No Limit before breaking out with his monster 2001 hit “Shake Ya Ass.”
The song was not only was featured to hilarious effect in the movie “About a Boy” but had my high school in an uproar because the administration would only allow the playing of the edited version at prom (entitled “Shake It Fast.”) I think some impromptu petitions were circulated among the student population. (Viva la democracy!)
I was instantly hooked on the song and forced my friend Dustin to include it on the very first burned CD of illegally downloaded music I ever owned.
Sadly, though, it all came crashing down for Mystikal not three years later.
On January 16, 2004, Mystikal was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to forcing his hairstylist to perform sex acts. He also admitted to extortion.
“The rapper and two bodyguards forced the woman to perform oral sex, have sex with them, and accused her of stealing $80,000 in checks,” according to the CNN story from the time. “Mystikal initially denied the assault, but confessed after a videotape of the crime was found at his home.”
I bring this up not say that I parallel my life to someone who committed a terrible crime and then lied about it, but to say that the predicament I feel that not only myself, but my entire country, find ourselves in are the results of crimes of complacency.
We, like the pre-arrest Mystikal, had everything going for us at the end of the 1990’s. The world was ours. Then we let ourselves get sloppy: we did nothing about the unregulated credit default swap market, we went to war with a sovereign country that had never attacked us and dragged our feet on an ever-worsening environmental disaster.
And then, we got caught for it. The bill came due. The cops found the tape. And that’s what I think we’ve all been doing in 2008: making payments on all the careless, carefree things we did in the years prior. (I know I have.)
For me, 2009 is about outrunning the daily grind and not just keeping up.
For my part, I’ve been so busy looking backwards trying to put out the many small fires in my life that I forget where I’m supposed to be going in the first place.
We’ll be released from the prison of truthiness that is the Bush White House in less than a month. Mystikal will have to wait another year until he’s released from his less metaphorical jail. Personally, I’m looking forward in 2009 to breaking free of the self-imposed habits that have allowed me to lately only move sideways thusfar.
In the meantime, I think we can all take a less from Mystikal’s hit “Bouncin’ Back (Bumpin’ Me Against the Wall)”: “So if you ain’t ready you better get ready/I know I do it better when I’m being opposed/Ah stick ya chest out, keep your chin up/’Cause sometimes you gotta get knocked down to get up.”

The top five gifts you (don't) need

2008-12-13T04:09:45Z

As I write this I’m less than 36 hours away from boarding a cross-country flight and that can only mean one thing: hours and hours of pouring through the pages of the complimentary Sky Mall Magazine.
If you’ve flown at any point in the last decade you already know what I’m talking about. If, for some reason, you haven’t, Sky Mall is the largest, craziest collection of items that no one needs, but everyone sort of wants.
I generally completely forget about Sky Mall Magazine while I’m still on the ground and there’s a good reason for that: There is no way I would think the products inside were worth the money they’re asking unless I was trapped in a confined space for hours on end.
But even the promise of forced confinement may not be able to save the bottom lines of the producers of these overpriced trinkets this year.
Fifty-three percent of consumers say they expect to spend less on holiday gifts than they did last year, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Friday.
So with the economy as terrible as it is right now, I thought I’d give a shout out to some of my favorite Sky Mall offerings that are surely slumping in the sales right about now:
5) Brightfeet Lighted Slippers
In case you’ve grown bored of frightening your pets with the light on the front of the vacuum cleaner, why not treat them to a new brand of lighted horror, the Brightfeet Lighted Slippers?
“Bright Feet Lighted Slippers are slippers with headlights that light your way in the dark,” stated a portion of the product’s description. “It’s like having nightlights on your feet - ideal for night time trips to the bathroom, kitchen or kid's room. Use Bright Feet Lighted Slippers during power outages to locate emergency supplies.”
The slippers look just like you’d expect them to from the description, yet, sadly “colors pink and camouflage are no longer available.”
4) Political Party Door Mat
If normal conversation about politics is too taxing, why not simply lump all those who dare knock on your door into one or two categories before they even step foot in your house?
“Know where they stand when you open the door,” reads the first line of the ominous description.
The mat is split into two sections, with the top of each adorned with either the donkey or elephant to represent the Democrat or Republican who will soon wish he or she darkened a different doorstep.
Below each party symbol are a pair of shoe prints like you’d see on a dance chart, although should be noted that there is no mention of where third party or independent voters are supposed to stand.
3) Pop-Up Hot Dog Cooker
Finally, the wait is over. Gone are the days of tear-stained room temperature hot dogs. The good people at Hammacher Schlemmer have finally found a way to combine pre-cooked meat sticks and heat in one 660-watt appliance.
Apparently this item gets sold out a lot because the only two reviews on the Sky Mall Web site mentioned how lucky they felt to finally find one for sale. (Which was kind of hard to understand considering how gross the appliance must look a year into operation.)
The whole setup looks like sort of like a toaster, but with circular holes instead of rectangular ones. (And of course you probably shouldn’t stick pre-packaged meat in an actual toaster.)
On the other hand, I’ve heard microwaves, ovens, grills and open flames work quite well for heating meat and bread items too.
2) Day Clock
I think the thing that amazed me more than the fact that people actually bought an analog wall clock that only marked the days of the week was what those who did decided to be angry with when they received it.
“I am completely thrilled with the idea of this clock - however the picture is VERY misleading,” read a review of the product posted on the Web site Amazon.com. “When we received the clock, there was a large ‘Day Clock’ logo right on the ‘Wednesday/Thursday’ line. It completely ruins the look of the clock, and now it seems that we'll hang up a large advertisement right on our wall.”
Just wait ‘til they hear about wall calendars. I mean, the entire top half of those don’t even have anything to do with what date it is! (It’s products like this that make me question my faith in humanity.)
1) The Slanket
Let’s just drink in the concept of the Slanket for a moment, shall we?
“Here's the best blanket, hands down, for snuggling up with a book or laptop computer,” stated the product description. “Put your arms in the 13”-wide sleeves and then turn pages, type, knit or do anything else with your hands without uncovering your body.”
A blanket with sleeves. I repeat: A blanket. With sleeves.
Before I go any further, I’d just like to point out that the Slanket is the third most popular gift under $50 that Sky Mall offers.
One point the Slanket advertisements really stress is the fact that you’ll save on heating bills when you’re wrapped in your neon monk robe. What they fail to mention is the extra savings you’ll incur when you’re no longer hassled with going on dates or attracting new people. (Nothing says “sexy” like a ginormous swath of shapeless clothing.)

Free entertainment in an expensive time

2008-12-07T23:25:16Z

As my fiancée Ash is wont to say, “being a person is far too expensive.”
I’ve always agreed with this sentiment, but never more so than right now.
On Dec. 1, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that the United States entered a recession in December of 2007, citing employment and production figures as well as the third quarter decline in GDP. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 679 points that same day.
On Friday, the Labor Department released a report stating that employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, which was far worse than the 320,000 that economists forecast.
Even our ever-hopeful President-elect Barack Obama said in a pre-taped interview Sunday on “Meet the Press” that things are going to “get worse” before they get better.
So in the spirit of finding things to do on the cheap I thought I’d share a few absolutely free things I’m dealing with at the moment that are keeping me sane.
1) Library
Why they’re awesome: How rad is the concept of the free library system?
As Matt Damon’s character said in “Good Will Hunting” when confronted by some tipsy Ivy Leaguers: “You dropped a hundred-and-fifty-grand on (an)...education you could’ve got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.”
Not only can you order books at the Ukiah Library’s Web site that draw from not only the collections of Mendocino County institutions, but the entire Sonoma County system as well. (Score!)
But wait, there’s more: they have DVDs and VHS tapes you can order as well. Too cheap to pay for cable or Netflix? Well, if you don’t mind waiting until the 27 people in front of you are done with it, the first season of “The Wire” could be yours (for a limited time) in just six to eight months. (Double score!)
Drawbacks: There is something nice about owning books. Also, as I pointed out above, the best, newest and most popular items generally come with a long waiting period. (Like when I ordered a book entitled “Mike’s Election Guide” in October that I didn’t receive until two weeks ago.)
2) Podcasts
Why they’re awesome: True, this entry requires an internet connection (and preferably some sort of portable MP3 player) to take advantage of, but once you’ve gotten past those little bumps in the road, podcasts really are the way to go.
Podcasts are video or audio files that can be produced by anyone and, for the most part, downloaded and subscribed to for absolutely nothing.
And just like magazines there is a podcast for everything. Everything? Yes. Every. Thing. A quick look at the Web site Podcast Alley reveals 51,256 of them ready to be downloaded covering everything for music to Harry Potter to knitting.
If you have ears and even a passing interest in anything there’s no reason not to jump in. Except...
Drawbacks: Listening to them can sometimes be a chore if you subscribe to too many of them. (Like I do.)
For example, right now I’ve got six podcasts on my iPod: “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” (the National Public Radio news quiz), “Real Time With Bill Maher” (an audio-only version of the HBO show), “Savage Love Podcast” (a call-in advice show), “The Moth Podcast” (a collection of true stories told live on stage without notes), “This American Life” (the best radio show ever made) and “RadioLab” (an hour-long science program.)
All told, that’s a solid six hours of listening right there. And most of those update every week. And those aren’t even all the podcasts I subscribe to.
Needless to say, I’ve doing a lot more walking around town lately with my headphones stuffed into the side of my head.
3) Streaming network television shows
Why they’re awesome: We live in what could easily be considered the new golden age of television. TV is so good right now and in a wonderful coincidence many of the best shows are also available to to watch online right now for free.
Do I really need to explain any further why this is a good thing?
Drawbacks: Most of the series I enjoy watching online (like “The Office”) only keep their episodes up for a month before taking them down. Also, the networks really haven’t worked out all the kinks involved with the advertising attached to the shows, so it can be a little frustrating sitting through the same jumpy video advertisement for the new Prius five times just so you can watch the latest episode.
4) Other people
Why they’re awesome: My friend Ryan and I were at sitting at the Ukiah Brewing Company on Friday talking about the state of the world when she said something that really stuck with me.
“At least everyone’s going through the same thing right now,” she said.
This struck me as incredibly insightful and kind of funny.
“Yeah,” I said. “It would really be terrible if everyone else was like, ‘Yeah, we’re just doing great over here. I don’t know what’s wrong with you.’”
Pretty much everyone I know is going through some manner of hardship at the moment and those you love and trust need you more than ever. Just like you need them. (Like I had to tell you.)
Drawbacks: I guess the only drawback to the whole company of others concept is that you have to be careful about who you let into your circle. As a postcard I once saw in a coffee shop put it: “Other people ruin everything.”

Rent check update!

2008-12-06T00:39:16Z

I just got word that the rent check went through to my landlord. (Yay!) All my problems are over, dude.

Book review: Mike's Election Guide by Michael Moore

2008-12-05T23:16:14Z

This book may have been somewhat more entertaining to me if I had gotten my hands on it at any point before Nov. 4. In reality, I requested my copy from the local library several weeks in advance of Election Day, but didn't find it waiting for me at the Ukiah branch until a full three weeks after Barack Obama was already declared the winner. (Hooray?)
Having said that, even if I had cracked the cover in the month of October, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the project any more than I already do right now. Having already read two of Moore's other books ("Stupid White Men" and "Dude, Where's My Country?") I found the "Election Guide" to be a notably lazy effort. The font size used in the book was of particular note as I haven't seen text that large in a paperback book since I was in Junior High (I'm thinking of the "Goosebumps" series by R.L. Stine in particular.)
The book is 260 pages long, but I only got through about 170 of that since the last third of it is taken up by "Mike's Handy Candidate Guide" (a rundown of all the Democratic candidates he supports, which is pretty unreadable once you already know the outcome of most of these races), "Fox News/Talk Radio/McCain Campaign Easy Guide for Lifting Lines Out of Context from This Book" (which was funny, but also sort of hard to see schlepping through) and a collection of notes, sources and acknowledgments. (Maybe I've been setting too high of a goal for myself when thinking about writing a book. I mean, this got published and I could probably have tossed this off in a few weekends.)
The one thing I think gets left out of the praise/criticism of Moore is that he can be really funny. My favorite stunt of his was performed on his short-live television show "The Awful Truth." In the segment, Moore drives The Sodomobile, a pink van loaded with gay men and women, traveling across the country to U.S. states that have on-the-books sodomy laws, to fight for gay rights. At one point they encounter Pastor Fred Phelps, infamous for protesting at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, picketing during the funerals of other young gay men. Later in the show they travel to Four Corners National Monument and, um, break sodomy laws in four states (Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado) at the same time.
The same inspired flash of humor is present in several places throughout the book, mostly when he gets a rant going like this one in the section titled "How to Elect John McCain...or, How Many Democrats Does It Take to Lose the Most Winnable Presidential Election in American History?":

"After the debacles of Iraq, Katrina, gas prices, home foreclosures, our standing in the world, the failure to capture bin Laden, and revealing the identity of a CIA agent in an act of revenge, it would seem that Barack Obama should be on a cakewalk to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The man should be able to sleep his way through the rest of the campaign season. Ha! Think again."

The rest of the book is filled with a mix of "Man on the street" questions that "real" people lob over the plate for Moore to get a crack at and fantasy lists including "Ten Presidential Decrees for His First Ten Days," "Six Modest Proposals to Fix Our Broken Elections" and "One Last Job to Do When the Election is Over." (In which he outlines his not unreasonable dream of seeing the Bush team led out of the White House in handcuffs.)
It took me probably a total of two-and-a-half hours to read this thing and if I had paid the $13.99 list price I'd probably feel a bit cheated. (Heck, I only got this thing from the library and still feel vaugely ripped off.) I felt a similar despair when I viewed his latest film, "Slacker Uprising", an initially internet-only release that chronicled his unsuccessful 2004 college tour to unseat President Bush by, among other things, offering free Ramen noodles and underwear to those in the audience who registered to vote. "Slacker Uprising" had the same odds and sods quality about it that didn't appear to show the level of effort or craftsmanship I've seen from him before.
Although, given the amount of energy and furvor went into "Fahrenheit 9/11" and the subsequent tour that "Slacker Uprising" chronicles, I can almost understand the impulse.

Grade: C-

Hold my check? Can't live that way.

2008-12-05T01:07:38Z

Of all the stresses in my life, threats to my living situation tend to trump all others. That is to say, when I found out today that the two money orders I had sent to my landlord to cover the rent for this month at the end of the day Friday had not yet been received in Santa Rosa as of Wednesday I became a tad distraught. After about a half-hour of frantic searching around my apartment I found the stubs that came with the two money orders. After calling the customer help line and punching in the individual serial numbers I found that they had not been cashed yet. Then when I went to the post office they told me that if I had mislabeled the envelope in any way they probably wouldn't get around to sending it back to me until the "very last part of the week." Meanwhile I've got hundreds of dollars floating around an upset landlord. They also told me that since it was a first class letter there was no way to track it and basically nothing I can do. When I checked the Moneygram (the company that produced the money order) Web site, I found that to get a refund of a money order that had not been cashed would take a minimum of 30 days to complete.
Great. That will be just enough time for me to receive it just as I'm setting up my new apartment in an alley using a cardboard refrigerator box.