The Forkes Report

The Best Bet Is Service

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:01:00 -0700

The Giants won the Super Bowl! All the bets paid off! Here’s a bet that never crossed my mind: betting what would be the first score: touchdown, field goal or safety. That latter had odds of 50-1. Bet a buck, you win 50. Well, someone bet $1,000 and won $50,000.

That’s like looking at the results of a horse race and seeing the superfecta paid one-point-five mil on a one dollar bet — but you didn’t pick that one horse for your bet because, dammit, it was 64-1 odds. Yeah, I’m speaking from experience. If you’re betting the superfecta, the four horses that finish the race first, always include the longest shots.

That out of the way, now we’re back to real life. I just had the nicest conversation with a V.A. representative. The wait was ten minutes so, having been a customer service professional, I know she’s getting hammered with one call after another, with barely 30-45 seconds between calls. She was nice, asked me how to pronounce my last name (everyone gets it wrong) explained the entire process and well, she had me smiling at the end of the call. That’s how you do customer service.

It helps of course that as a customer you don’t call with an attitude and start getting hostile and aggressive with the person on the other end of the phone. Why be an asshole to someone you don’t know who is just doing their job? Always observe the Golden Rule.

Now I sit with my bowl of Cheerios contemplating the meaning of my life. Once during meditation, years ago, I received this message from the ether world: “Be of service to your community.” Shortly thereafter I got into some service work and have continued that to this day. Maybe that’s the meaning of life: be of service.

The Buddha said: “A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”

It’s Super Bowl Sunday!

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:01:00 -0700

Once in a while I’ll wonder why I haven’t received any phone calls all day and then notice the ringer on my phone is turned off. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. It’s a great way to escape from everyone and everything. Today (Saturday) I missed out on a party.

Called my friend who left two messages and he had made other plans. It was evident in his voice in those messages he was disappointed. Hell, I would be too.

It’s not like I consciously decide to leave the ringer off, but life just doesn’t seem important enough to check to see that it’s on. It’s on now, but at a very quiet setting.
•••• •••• ••••• •••• ••••
This is interesting: Adam Lambert, the guy who should have won the ninth season of American Idol, has joined Queen as the singer of course. Could anyone really replace Freddie Mercury? Not really, but Lambert has a great voice and ought to do Freddie proud. Hell, he could even pull off doing the make-up thing ala Sheer Heart Attack. Just saying.

This is what really made me stop and stutter: Brian May, the astounding guitarist for Queen, is 64. Damn. Reminds me that Sheer Heart Attack was released when I was in high school about 40 years ago.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, the biggest single day sports event in the world. The World Cup is bigger, but only because it goes on for months and teams from around the world compete.

More money will be bet on the Super Bowl than at any other time. The game looks to be one of the most competitive and high scoring games in history. The New England Patriots are the favorites, their odds being -3.5. In other words, to win a dollar (if the Pats win) you have to wager $3.50. So you’d get $4.50 were the Pats to win. No one bets a dollar.

Odds on the Giants are +3.5. You bet a dollar and if the Giants win you get back your dollar plus $3.50. Simple. If you’re making a straight bet and don’t have a dog in this fight, bet on the Giants. You might lose, but if you win you’ll more that triple your money.

The “smarter” bet is to predict beating the point spread or “taking the points” if you expect the Giants to beat the spread. The Pats are predicted to win by three points. So, if you expect the Pats to win bigger, you’ll get close to an even money return. The sports books take a commission, the vig, which cuts into your winnings.

Conversely, you can bet the Giants to beat the spread. They can still lose, but if the final score is less than three points difference, you win. Of course if the Giants win you’ll wish you had bet them to win. So, do both if you’re betting on the Giants.

Really, betting the Giants to win is the best bet. If they win you get more money on your return. It’s not like horse or dog racing where you have multiple competitors in a race with different odds. It’s a very straight and formal action and result.

On the other hand you can bet the over and under of the final score which is over 50 points total. I would bet the under … or not. Both teams have gunslinger quarterbacks and excellent offenses and both teams have below average defenses. It actually could be a high scoring game.

Were I to make the trip to Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico, my bets would be: Giants to win, take the points and bet the under. All those other bets: total score quarter-by-quarter, who score first, longest play for a score, number of penalties called, I would pass on them. On the other hand I might bet on the number of turnovers. Both quarterbacks, Eli Manning and Tom Brady, have had their share of picks and fumbles.

The experts say this may be the most thrilling Super Bowl since the San Francisco 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XVI. Eh, who knows? Who even remembers? Shit, I was no doubt wasted and probably passed out before the game ended. Quarterback Joe Montana became known throughout the land and remembered forever and his opposing QB Ken Anderson faded into obscurity.

Today’s two QB’s are both well known, both are considered “elite,” and we may see both pass for 300-plus yards. Neither one will be forgotten regardless of the outcome. Eli Manning of the Giants has a chance to do what his brother hasn’t done: win a second Super Bowl. Tom Brady has a chance to join a very elite group of quarterbacks who have won four rings: Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana.

Ironically, the last time Brady had that opportunity, his Patriots were unbeaten in the 2007 season. Alas the New York Giants dashed his chance for a fourth ring and the Patriots’ perfect season on the doorstep of despair in Super Bowl XLII. As I recall, that was a pretty low scoring game.

For me to win my bets, the Giants will have to do it again. Go Giants.

Our Next Mayor

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:01:00 -0700

Twice I’ve written something to fill this space, since January 30, and rejected both, although to be honest, the second bit was a rewrite of the first. Politics really feels so futile. It doesn’t change anything and we’re labeled the “blogosphere” and relegated to the heap of voices that don’t matter in this world.

Right at this moment on the other side of the political aisle someone is tap-tap-tapping away at their device of choice with something equally is passionate as anything I’ve written. It’s all bullshit no doubt. Just the other day someone posted a bullshit article by a retired Marine Corps officer who claims President Obama only role in the killing of Usama bin Laden was to say “yes” to the order. That kind of bullshit doesn’t even warrant a response. In fact, it’s such bullshit not even FOX News tries to peddle it.

Sure, the Republican Primaries have been quite entertaining so far, and we’ve only been through three primaries and one caucus. As of this moment a second caucus election is taking place in Nevada.

Who doesn’t love watching and listening to Newt Gingrich bloviate? His speech after the Florida Primary was priceless. His fellow Republicans were calling it everything from crazy and wacky to “off the wall.”

Not to be outdone with funny things to say, Chuck Todd of NBC referred to the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh as the “Tea Party Intelligentsia.” As oxymorons go, that’s funny.

Thanks to the advent of unlimited amounts of money being spent on our elections, the real tragedy is a handful of extremely wealthy individuals will control most of our election process. Regardless of your political persuasion, that isn’t good for our economy or our soul.

Just wait until the general election rolls around when the two sides of the presidential race each have a billion dollars to spend. Expect more than half the commercials we see on TV to be political ads, from the campaigns themselves and from the Super Pacs supporting them.

Here in San Diego we’re picking a new mayor. Although our current mayor, Jerry Sanders, has his critics, the general feeling is that he has been successful. When Sanders was first elected six years ago, the office of mayor was given more power and authority over the city’s business.

Sanders got to the mayor’s office due to the resignation of his predecessor, Dick Murphy, who resigned over the scandal involving the city’s pension program. The scandal being city workers get better benefits than people who work in the private sector. Explain to me why that’s a bad thing?

Thirty years ago people working in the private sector received the same kind of benefits: fully funded pensions and health coverage that didn’t eat up the family budget.

Sanders’ plan is to make city workers get the same kinds of benefits as the private sector, which means they will be as fucked as the rest of us. Why?

Why not work to bring the fortunes of the private sector up to that of the public service employees? The simple answer is it would interfere with the corporations making record profits, as they are doing now. By turning pensions into 401(k)-type accounts, the city—or state as the case may be—turns billions of dollars over to the big investment bankers. In other words, they will tie the retirement fortunes to the vagaries and risks of the stock market and we saw how well that worked in 2001 and 2008.

People who thought they could retire are now looking at working until they die. Good-bye Yellow Brick Road. In 2001 I was working for the giant multinational corporation, AOL-Time Warner. In 2000-2001 the Internet giant America Online (AOL) merged with Time Warner to take advantage of that big broadband market. Little did anyone know AOL’s stock was over-valued by as much as 40%.

In 2001 the “Dot-Com” bubble burst and voila! All of a sudden all those 401 (k) accounts were worth half of what they had been the day before. At best.

As a new employee, the guy in charge of Human Resources was convincing all the new employees to invest most of their 401(k) accounts in AOL-Time Warner stock because it was going to go through the roof! I had to think about that and it just didn’t seem to make sense, so I didn’t. I did put more into AOL-Time Warner than what anyone would consider prudent, but my thinking was, “What if this guy is right?”

Well, he wasn’t and as investments were collapsing, most especially the worth of AOL-Time Warner, my fellow employees would walk around the workplace in shock, holding the statements from their 401(k) accounts trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

There was a couple I remember in particular, husband and wife, both of whom had planned to retire within a year. During a lunch break one day I happened to share a table with them and both had rescinded their retirement papers because they could no longer afford to retire. I’ll never forget the woman fighting back tears. I felt like a real dick though, because I had been bragging about not putting so much of my 401(k) into AOL-Time Warner so my account didn’t take such a big hit. This couple, they lost over 50% of their investments.

Yeah, put public sector employees into the same boat so they can be just as fucked as everyone else.

Mayor Sanders has been glorified as the great savior of San Diego. What did he do? He went after the city employees first … primarily. First off Sanders put 1,500 city employees on the unemployment rolls. Then he went after the pension and benefits.

At no time did he try to increase the revenue coming into the city’s treasury by attracting new business to San Diego. His entire policy was based on a slash and burn of the city employees. Now, for new city hires, there’s no pension and they have to pay more for the reduced benefits, unlike employees who have been with the city before 2009. They get their full pensions and benefits.

When Sanders became mayor he said he would take a significantly reduced salary, just over $36,000 a year. When he was re-elected he chose to accept the full salary, just over $109,000.

As a retired police officer, Mayor Sanders gets pension and benefits from that job. According to records, the mayor has waived his pension and benefits associated with his position as mayor. Well, kudos to him for that.

Has Mayor Sanders been good for San Diego? The city’s debt has gone down significantly since he took office, but at the expense of city employees. Anyone can fire employees and take away their benefits. Just ask Donald Trump and Mit Romney. Hell, Mit likes firing people.

What’s next for San Diego? At the moment there are four people running for the job: District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, Representative Bob Filner, Councilman Carl DeMaio and Nathan Fletcher. DeMaio and Fletcher are for the pension initiative that’s moving city employees from pensions to the high risk of 401(k) accounts; Filner and Dumanis oppose that initiative.

Our primary comes June 5 when the field will be winnowed down to two candidates. My guess is the race will be between Dumanis and DeMaio. Fletcher is not that well known and Filner has too high of a negative rating plus, he doesn’t have the money to compete. He should stay a member of the House of Representatives.

The deciding factor for me will be who will speak for the working class. Right now that isn’t clear. The public sentiment is to screw public sector employees instead of trying to raise the standards for all. This might be as interesting a race as the one for president.

The Milwaukee I Knew

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:01:00 -0700

There was something else written that was supposed to be posted yesterday, but it just didn’t pass the smell test and believe me, it gets pretty smelly in this room! It had to do with Saul Alinsky, the obscure reference New Gingrich uses to criticize President Obama. One sentence about Saul Alinsky: He was a good guy who was neither a communist or socialist and were I to be compared to Saul Alinsky it would be a great compliment.

Instead, this morning, after being awakened by my digestive tract, I logged on to Facebook, that world-wide, possibly galaxy-wide, social networking phenomenon just to catch up and see what people I know — or know of — ramble on about their lives.
 Did you know: due to the recent IPO Facebook is now estimated to be worth $100,000,000,000? That’s 100 billion, if you just got dizzy. I should have been a software engineer.

My niece posted a YouTube video about gay rights that was pretty interesting. We’ve overturned Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, now it’s time to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act. My primary reason for serving in the U.S. Marine Corps was to defend our Civil Rights (the Bill of Rights). Ensuring all of us enjoy equal rights under the law is long past overdue.

My other reason for joining the Marines was to be the baddest motherfucker in the valley. Turns out there were about 150,000 other Marines who were badder motherfuckers than me. Oh well.

Then there was this new group, relatively new … new to me anyway, about the deceased icons of the Milwaukee Music Scene. Lots of pictures from that era and names of people who have left this Mortal Coil. That brought back some memories. Someone posted a link to an On Milwaukee Article about the 21 best bars/nightclubs that no longer exist and that was a trip.

It brought back a lot of memories, not just of the bands on the list, but many others. The Electric Ballroom, The Palms, the Odd Rock and Unicorn, Café Mélange, Century Hall — saw Pinetop Perkins there with Muddy Waters’ band — The Factory, Jabberwocky, the Up-n-Under — just Brady Street in general — Zak’s; a lot of places where a person could have a nice drink and listen to some great live music. Ironically, my best memories are from the time after I stopped drinking and drugging.

A fire took out Century Hall, arguably the best nightclub ever in Milwaukee. Shank Hall burned, but relocated. That was after I left Milwaukee. Then there was the Murray Tap. That was an awesome bar with live blues bands twice a week. Who can forget Hooligans? Across the street from Hooligans was the old Oriental Drugs. Arguably the best lunch counter ever in Milwaukee. I had many a breakfast or lunch with some of Milwaukee’s finest musicians there.

Down the street from the Oriental was Ma Fischer’s. Damn big omelets! In between them were the Landmark Lanes. Besides a bowling alley, the place had a nightclub that featured live music and then poetry readings and slams. When we were in high school we’d get in to hear the George Pritchett Trio. The drinking age was 18 so getting carded was never a problem.

The last time I was in Milwaukee seven years ago, both the Oriental and Ma Fischer’s were gone, but Landmark Lanes was still open. It was such a disappointment. I so wanted to have lunch at the Oriental and see if there was anyone I knew. They say you can’t go back and it’s so true, especially if the places you loved are no longer there.

One of my favorite bands in the 1980’s was the Rollins Band, fronted by Henry Rollins. One of the best live acts ever, I never missed a chance to see their shows. I’d love to get another RB, “I Am a Hard Volume Experience” T-shirt. Anyone remember those? It came out with their Hard Volume CD and tour.

Saw a bunch of bands there local and otherwise. It was one of the few clubs that featured local bands playing their own music. Here’s a shoutout to Johnny and the Losers!

One year the Odd Rock had G.G. Allin throwing his poo at the audience. True story: I was writing for the Shepherd Express at the time and the Odd Rock’s proprietor Jack Koshick called me and asked for a favor. No kidding. He wanted me to drive to Chicago to pick up G.G. Allin and bring him to the gig because his band didn’t want to make the trip in the same van with the guy. Shut the Fuck Up!

Why the hell would I want to spend two hours in my car with a guy who wasn’t even welcome by his own band? There was something seriously wrong with that guy beyond the drug addiction. He died in the mid-90’s in Michigan from an overdose.

Then there was the time the Odd Rock had Flock of Seagulls, minus the weird hair. I didn’t stay past the first song. Does anyone remember the free show Pearl Jam did at the Varsity Theater?

They tell me Shank Hall still exists. A lot of great bands played there, like the Forkestra. We opened for Michael McClure and Ray Manzarek. So many bands rolled through there, most of them local bands. Anyone looking for a place to play would try to get booked at Shank Hall. Shortly before leaving Milwaukee some locals organized what became an annual event: a benefit concert in honor of John Lennon. A bunch of bands would play Lennon songs all night and all the proceeds from the door would go to a gun control cause. I forget the name of the benefit, who put it on and the organization that got the money, but it was a cool event.

There were so many shows at Shank, but I can’t remember any specific, other than Rollins Band played there and just wave after wave of good to excellent local bands. Usually I would start out sitting at the bar and if the band caught my attention I’d move closer to the stage.

Okay, Monks of Doom played there, Masters of the Universe with Ginger Baker on drums, Brian Ritchie’s band, don’t know if it had a name, but it was great music. I just read he now lives in Australia and is going to become a citizen down under. Brian Ritchie, if you don’t know, is the bass player for the Violent Femmes. It’s hard to remember all the bands of national or international note who played there or anywhere.

The Unicorn. Easily my favorite nightclub. In the basement of Sidney Hih. It was the place where Johnny and the Losers most often played. No matter which room the bands played in, the audience was crushed up to what was considered the stage. Once in a while they would have bands playing on both rooms. That was a sonic meltdown. Was the proprietor’s name Joe? He once corrected me and said he was Persian, not Iranian. He had no use for that current regime.

He also had a Mexican restaurant in the same building.

Don’t know why I have Johnny and the Losers on the brain lately. Maybe because they were the Milwaukee band most like Rollins Band. And the guitarist, Chris Tischler could and would shred. I think it was Chris, but one night we got to talking about Ozzy Osbourne’s Tribute to Randy Rhodes and then the band Rush. The drummer, can’t remember his name, reminded me of Neil Peart of Rush.

One thing I always believed was that Milwaukee grew great guitarists like corn. Every band had a great guitar player. Most, if not all, could shred, whether the music featured shredding or not. They just could. Most musicians back then could literally play anything. I’d be listening to a band playing some really cool original music, pick a genre, and then between songs the guitarist would wail a lick and I’d think, Really?
 This thing can’t go without mentioning Greg Koch. But then I’d have to remember Al Ek and Jim Eannelli and then the finger’s out of the dike and the this thing gets flooded with names.

But it wasn’t all metal and hardcore. Hell, I was a Deadhead too. Don’t get me started. This thing has gone on long enough as it is and I’m still thinking about getting some sleep — at 6:19 a.m.

So many other clubs that didn’t get mentioned, but if you want, Click This Link and read the article. They have a far better list than what’s on this page. It’s time to put this thing to bed.

Rest in Peace Jerome Brish.

The Ship of State

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:09:00 -0700

Tuesday was a quiet night after an equally quiet day. As workdays go, Tuesday was no different than any others. The news programs were talking about the performance of the candidates in Monday’s debate that took place in Tampa, Florida.

The two frontrunners, Newt Gingrich and Mit Romney, went after each other with a fury of a dogfight between a Dachshund and a Jack Russell. Newt had answers for most of Mit’s accusations and contempt for the ones he couldn’t answer.

The other two, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, well who really cares about their debate performance anymore. They know the nomination isn’t theirs, although Santorum still harbors the fantasy that he could win the prize because he won the Iowa Caucuses.

His moment of regret came during the day on Tuesday when a birther-slash-Muslimer confronted him about why no one was trying to unseat President Obama, a man, this elderly woman claimed, was an avowed Muslim and not legally qualified to be president. He didn’t correct her. Santorum’s reason for not doing so: she was elderly and he wasn’t going to upset the old woman.

That was the state of the race for the Republican nominee for President of the United States.

Right in the middle of the circus called the Republican Primaries, the president gave his State of the Union Address. He started with a hurrah to the troops, highlighting the fact that he had brought the troops home from Iraq, that troops were coming home from Afghanistan and that for the first time in two decades Usama bin Laden was no longer a threat to the United States.

Everyone in the chamber stood and cheered. How do you not cheer the troops?

It was perhaps President Obama’s best speech in his short three years in the Oval Office. It shouldn’t be a surprise though, because it was also his kick-off speech for his re-election campaign. Let’s be real. In stating for us his view of how the Ship of State is doing, he laid out challenges to his Republican opponents in Congress that they will have to respond to, by either keeping to their obstructionist path or by capitulating and agreeing to the president’s plans for the future. I’m betting it won’t be the latter.

Highlights of the speech, the highest of the night: Gabrielle Gifford’s entrance into the chamber for her last State of the Union Address. On Tuesday the Democratic Representative from Tucson, AZ announced she would be resigning her seat in the House of Representatives today.
 The official moment of Giffords’ resignation was an emotional moment as her friend, Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, read the letter of resignation to the assembled House, just after the body unanimously passed a bill she co-sponsored that made penalties for ultralight aircraft for smuggling drugs across the U.S.-Mexican border heavier.

As for the president’s speech: The recession has been stopped and a recovery started. Over three million jobs have been created in the past two years despite the Republican obstructionism. On top of that, American corporations have had some of the most successful years in history and to top it off, General Motors is once again the number one automaker in the world.

And despite that little fact, and that Chrysler is the fastest growing automaker in America, there are those — Mit Romney — who still insist we should have let America’s biggest private employers fail in 2009.
 Here’s the irony of Mit Romney’s animosity towards Detroit: not only his father was once the governor of Michigan, he was also CEO of General Motors.

Of course the president reminded everyone this economic crisis started during the Republicans’ watch. So he was going to stand firm against all attempts to return to the policies that set the recession in motion. President Obama made a big point of introducing Richard Cordray, the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, appointed during the recess because the Republicans in the Senate were not going to appoint someone to head an agency they are fiercely opposed to.

So now we have an agency that will oversee the money-lending business. Who would be against that? Oh yeah, the Republicans who think any regulation is too much regulation of the financial industry.

Now it’s no secret that in 2007 Mit Romney lobbied against any regulations of the financial industry, especially any that would raise the tax rate on capital gains from 15% to 30%. Congress, both houses and both major parties, tried to pass that legislation. But, as Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa stated in 2007, the financial industry had flooded the capitol with lobbyists to stop the regulations and his prediction of passage at the time: it was too risky for him to speculate.

In 2011, having learned their lesson from 2007 and having stated their number one priority was to make Barack Obama a one-term president, Congressional Republicans were firmly against any regulations of the financial industry. Including raising the taxes of those poor, put upon millionaires and billionaires. And of course Mit Romney was on the record, on tape no less, opposing raising his tax rate.

Foreign policy was part of the speech, as it is every year. Tuesday’s State of the Union had a little more significance that anyone realized until hours after it was over. On his way to the dais, the president made a point of congratulating Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta for a job well done. That sent news hounds scurrying to find out what that was all about.

As you may recall, back in May 2011 the president was appearing at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, our military, spear-headed by Navy Seal Team Six, was in the process of disposing of Usama bin Laden. We didn’t know that until the following night when the president held a press conference to announce the news that bin Laden was buried at sea.

Tuesday, shortly before the president’s speech, a similar operation was taking place in Somalia. Navy Seals were rescuing two aid workers, one an American. We didn’t know that until the news broke several hours after the speech.

While Republicans are criticizing the president’s foreign policy, the president is getting things done the previous president was either unwilling or incapable of doing. And clearly, the current Secretary of State is more popular around the world and at home than her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice. In fact, Hillary Clinton is far more popular here in the United States than the president, who still has a pretty good favorability rating.

The official Republican response came from Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. We need only one word to describe his speech: grim. Nothing is going right in America, somehow all the president’s policies have failed, despite all the evidence to the contrary; Daniels, once thought of as one of the people who could beat the president in the 2012 general election, was basically making a campaign speech for the Republican nominee, whomever that might be.

The way it stands at the moment, the 2012 presidential election is President Obama’s to lose and it doesn’t look too likely that will happen. But you never know. As good as the Republican primary race has been so far, now we’re hoping Newt Gingrich starts winning the delegates just to see if the Republicans have a brokered convention and choose someone other than anyone in the field at the moment.

Yes Mr. President, we are hopeful!

Battle Royale of the South

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:01:00 -0700

In professional wrestling they call this type of thing a Battle Royale. That wasn’t a debate, they were all there to knock each other out, in particular the two frontrunners, Mit Romney and Newt Gingrich. The former Speaker said as much about the Liberal from Massachusetts, “I don’t want to bloody his nose, I want to knock him out.”

In the beginning there were nine combatants on the stage, all vying for the semi-final crown, the opportunity, the chance, the privilege of taking on the champion, that Evil Socialist-Muslim-Extremist-Fascist — and Black man, don’t forget that — Barack Hussein Obama.

They battled on stage and off; all were in then out — and then maybe in again. Some were humiliated and some ignored the humiliation, at least in public until they couldn’t bear the scorn no more. Nine individuals, one of whom is a woman, all hoping to lead their team, their party to the Promised Land of Tampa, Florida and beyond.

It started with the bought and paid for Des Moines, Iowa Straw Poll. The woman, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, won that battle. She bought up over six thousand votes, feted all who cared to participate with lavish barbeques and A-List entertainment in hopes that they would reward her by using the votes she gave them to vote for her. Sound confusing? You have to pay to vote in the Iowa Straw Poll. So all the candidates paid the cost for the voters and Bachmann paid more than the others.

Unfortunately for her, the Great White (Conservative) Hope announced his candidacy on the same day as the Iowa Straw Poll. All of a sudden the Straw Poll no longer mattered, the team had their star quarterback in the game and she was relegated to the far end of the bench.
 And we had our first casualty: former Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. He brought up the rear in the Straw Poll and the entry of Governor Perry made it appear like the reasonable guy didn’t have a chance, so he dropped out.

But then he began to talk into the microphones and like many a Heisman Trophy winner, he proved to be not up to the task. They wanted that other guy, the big one from the Jersey Shore. He talked tough and told voters and others to go fuck themselves if they challenged him on nearly any issue.

But he was a no-go, Governor Chris Christie wasn’t going to leave the minor leagues.

The race before the voting dragged on and we had an entertainer in the race, the Pizza Man Herman Cain! He was up in the polls, people loved him and his gaffes were so funny late night comedians were begging him to stay in the race. But alas, the onslaught of allegations of extra-marital affairs and sexual assault forced him to resign his position as funniest clown in the clown car.
 Thanks to Stephen Colbert, he made another appearance Friday in South Carolina. He endorsed the People!

As the best reality show on TV carried on, there were more casualties dropping off the trail. Jon Huntsman, the former Governor of Utah and former Ambassador to China. He had the temerity to say nice things about that president he last served.

Then Michele Bachmann, who had so much promise in August as she was buying the Iowa Straw Poll. She held her own in the debates at times, but could never get more than the minimum required to participate.

And finally the Great White (Conservative) Hope, with a wave to Newt Gingrich as he made his way back to Texas. At least in Texas he could take comfort in having a job.

And that left four remaining on stage as the curtain went up on the debate Thursday Night in Charleston, South Carolina.

Newt Gingrich came out swinging at the media, his favorite punching bag for the past 30 years, ever since he got into political office. Despite inviting the media to talk about his personal life, it was off limits once one of he ex-wives started talking. Newt’s first rule of campaigning: if you don’t have an answer to a question, at least one that makes him look good, then turn it around and attack the media — especially if you’re in a room of hard core Tea Party Republicans who are angry and love that red meat.

More than any other candidate, Gingrich has tapped into that anger; he knows the buttons to push, especially race. The Tea Party is angry Liberals control the Senate and the White House and worse yet, the Liberal in the White House is a Black Man. So, when Gingrich calls President Obama the “Food Stamp President” the White People in that audience rise up in jubilation.

When Gingrich puts African-American moderator Juan Williams “in his place” and the crowd roars their approval, Gingrich thanks them and makes a campaign ad out of the moment.

Then, on Thursday Night, Gingrich rode that wave of anger and turned his wrath from African-Americans to the media. First by attacking John King of CNN for taking Gingrich up on his invitation to ask about his personal life. And then, in the same rant, this little chestnut of a line that nearly brought the assembled crowd to their feet: “I’m tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.”

Here’s something to watch when Gingrich gets on stage in these debates. He says these red meat lines sincerely enough you almost think he believes what he says. The crowd roars and Gingrich pauses a bit to let his followers vent their emotions — and then he has that little smile, the one that acknowledges their approval and confirms for him, he’s pushed the right buttons. He loved it!

Forget about Rick Santorum and Doctor Paul. They may be in the Final Four of this round, but they won’t finish in the top two. Nope, that next level now belongs to Gingrich and … oh yeah … Mit Romney.

Poor Mit. Just a week ago all the pundits said the Republican nomination was all but wrapped up, that Mit was going to go three-for-three: Iowa, New Hampshire and then South Carolina. His poll numbers were so far above the others, there was, logically, no way any of the others could unseat Romney. And he had the money and ground game to go the distance.

But everyone keeps asking about his income and how much he pays in taxes. Not just the media, but his opponents in the primaries as well. More so even. That’s Mit’s Achilles’ Heel: he’s one of the 1% and doesn’t know how to deal with it.

And Gingrich was unleashed on the South Carolina crowd Monday Night and then again Thursday Night.

If that wasn’t bad enough for Mit Romney, before the debate started the Republican Party of Iowa called to say that oops, Governor Romney didn’t win the Iowa Caucuses, Senator Santorum won. What? What about his three-for-three plan? Romney handled the disappointment okay, he was still a close second, but dammit! A week ago everyone was patting him on the back for doing what no candidate had done before: win both the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary.

Now, on the day of the Republican Primary in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich was leading in most of the polls in South Carolina — some by double digits — and nationally, Romney’s lead over Gingrich was cut in half. Romney’s no doubt thinking, “What’s a rich White guy gotta do to win the nomination? Can’t a brother get a break?”
 Either way, a rich White guy will win this primary.

Who let the dogs out, woof-woof.

By the end of the workday Friday the top Romney staff were telling their supporters their guy, their once three-for-three sure thing, was not expected to win. That honor was going to go to the man with three wives. Seriously, who is more of a Mormon in this race? The guy who tithed to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or the Protestant-Turned-Catholic with three marriages under his belt — both the belt and marriages by now hidden by that big flopping over hanging belly?

And what has everyone been saying about the South Carolina Primary? Whichever candidate wins the Palmetto State goes on to win the nomination. Mit, some of us are truly starting to feel sorry for you dude! Seriously! The guy has spent most of five years and millions of his own money to be president and it looks like it just ain’t gonna happen.

Four years ago two Democratic senators went at it like pit bulls, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Hillary’s once philandering husband even pulled out the race card in South Carolina, to no avail. Eventually Obama won the nomination and finally the presidency.

What’s going on this cycle in the Republican Primaries is not without precedent. The only difference: the viciousness of the fight has been elevated, due in no small part to the Citizens United decision that allows anyone to spend any amount of undisclosed money on these campaigns.

This says a lot about that decision; the largest crowd to gather on Friday was for the rally set up by Stephen Colbert for he and Herman Cain. You know they will get more than 5% of the vote. Since anyone can vote there will be more than a few Democrats and wisenheimers voting for Cain, who is still on the ballot.

This has been the best reality show on TV. Florida is next, with a debate on Monday. Click This Link for the debate schedule and if you missed any of the debates, you can watch the entire debates that have taken place, sans commercials. Enjoy the show!

Hmmm, I mixed a lot of sports metaphors ... did I miss any?

The Great Hope — Gone

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 06:01:00 -0700

The Great White (Conservative) Hope has dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination for president. Rick Perry, the Texas governor who once threatened to secede from the union, taking his state with him; the man who, in August 2011, was hailed as the Great White (Conservative) Hope of the Republican Party and had millions … well, maybe hundreds … of Republicans practically begging him to get in the race so the party would not have to field the Massachusetts Liberal Mitt Romney as their (cover your ears kids) nominee for President of the United States.

Before he declared his intentions, Perry’s poll numbers were through the roof. He was almost as popular as Katy Perry! He held his gigantua prayer-palooza in that big stadium in Houston, TX and then declared his candidacy to be the Republican Nominee for President of the United States of America.

Hallelujah and Praise be to Jesus! Conservative voices rose up in prayer to rejoice: here was the Christian Conservative they needed to represent them, the only man (if you didn’t include New Jersey Governor Chris Christie) who could possibly be capable of beating that evil, Socialist Muslim Extremist Fascist, Barack Hussein Obama.
 Psst! Hey! You know, none of us really wants to say this, but let’s get real: this Obama character is Black! Let’s be honest, no good White Christian wants a Black man for president! Remember the good ole days when we didn’t have to see’em in the same restaurants as us? And now we got one as president!
 Psst! I know at least one conservative who doesn’t hold the color of the president’s skin against him and I would guess there are many more, but from the anti-Obama spam e-mails I get, that racism is obviously real.

Then, once he got in, Governor Perry began to speak and the news outlets began to pay attention when he did. Pollsters could take polls twice a day and mark the decline of Perry’s popularity. His performances in the debates became the fodder for any comedian, late night or otherwise. It got so bad even his competitors were feeling sorry for Perry, giving him cover whenever the press asked them about Perry’s newest gaffe.

In the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primaries, Perry did just good enough to stay eligible for the debates and like many a Republican candidate before him, Perry pinned his hopes on the ultra-conservative state of South Carolina. History has proven that the person who wins the Republican Primaries in the Palmetto State becomes the nominee for the Republican Party.

Alas, even after his performance in the debate this past Monday, January 16, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when he had the gathered South Carolinians standing and cheering for his call to arms against the federal government, Governor Rick Perry couldn’t get a bump from the voters, at least not in the polls.
 During the debate Perry said South Carolina was at war with the federal government and got the loudest applause, including from Republican Governor Nikki Haley who nodded her head in agreement.

So Thursday, January 19, 2012, the rootin’ shootin’ governor of Texas, once the Great White (Conservative) Hope, bowed out of the presidential race, just two days before the South Carolina Primary.

What could have been the ultimate slap in the face, the penultimate insult to Perry, was that Social Conservative leaders gathered in his state to pick a nominee they would support in opposition to that Massachusetts Liberal Mit Romney. Did they choose the man who hosted that Prayer-Palooza in Houston? He is, without question, a good Social Conservative Protestant Christian; he looked like the obvious choice. But no, those Social Conservatives chose a Catholic, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, to represent them!

Are you shittin’ me? One of those effin’ papists who pray to more than one god, one of which is that guy in the Vatican? Now that’s gotta hurt, if you’re Rick Perry.

Until he dropped out of the race, Perry’s efforts to unseat that Massachusetts Liberal Mit Romney were matched by those from the former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Both Perry and Gingrich attacked Romney over his wealth and how Romney’s former employer, Bain Capital, did business.

My God! Perry and Gingrich were leveling Obama-esque charges against the front-runner. But it was having the effect they were hoping for: Romney’s support was falling.

So it should come as little surprise that as he bowed out Perry threw his support behind the former Speaker. And as Perry said, Newt isn’t perfect, “but who among us is?”

The childish grammar aside, confirming Perry’s assertion about Gingrich’s frailties, is the former Speaker’s second wife Marianne, who told ABC news that when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis her then-husband Newt was already fucking his current wife Callista and he was asking her if it would be okay to have an open marriage so he could have at least two women.
 Do you remember when Gingrich explained his cheating ways were the result of his deep patriotism?

So Newt Gingrich marches on, carrying the standard for Rick Perry and all those Social Conservatives who can’t believe they will be stuck with another liberal (Senator John McCain was the first one) as their party’s nominee for president, come November 6, 2012. And the Liberal this time ain’t even a Christian — he’s a Mormon!

Just an aside here; I was just looking up Callista Gingrich on the World Wide Internets to be sure her name is spelled correctly here and found this out: the third Mrs. Newt Gingrich was born and raised in Whitehall, WI and worked as a Congressional Aide for Wisconsin Republican Representative Steve Gunderson. I wonder if Gunderson considers himself somewhat of a matchmaker?

But what of the front-runner, former Governor of Massachusetts, Mit Romney? Well, he fights back, through his Super Pac, but besides his murky history with Bain Capital and once liberal views as governor, we now know Romney is firmly a part of the 1%, paying 15% of his income to taxes because most of it is capital gains income. On top of that there’s an undetermined amount parked in Cayman Island banks to avoid the IRS.

Should the Republican Party be worried about the 2012 Presidential Elections? Nearly six months ago the Harpy (Ann Coulter) said that if the GOP didn’t nominate New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as their presidential candidate, they would be stuck with Romney and lose the election to President Obama.

You know, this time she might be right.
•••• •••• •••• ••••
Thursday the four remaining combatants went at it again, this time in Charleston, SC. The fur flew from the very first question from debate moderator, John King of CNN. The question was for the former Speaker of the House and it was about the allegations from his first ... no, his second ... wife Marianne. Did he really ask her if they could have an open marriage?

Tomorrow comes the answer.

For The Love Of God

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:45:00 -0700

What happened to the Green Bay Packers? How could they lose their first playoff game of 2012 and lose it in Lambeau Field? Now what? Like the end of every season, we wait until next season. But jeez, the first round, to the Giants?

Now I’m cheering for the San Francisco 49ers … (sigh)

Have you seen the commercial for Christian Mingle on TV? Okay, for the most part they are like all the other dating-slash-romance sites on the Internets, but this one has the most disturbing tag line of all: “Find God’s match for you!”
 That line is trademarked.

How would you know it’s “God’s match”? The ad goes on to say “God” is telling you (us) instead of waiting for God to find us a mate, “… it’s your time to act; it’s your move.”

Well, which is it? God’s match or our choice? It’s contradictory, in line with the conundrum of Christianity that’s been the mystery of all mysteries since the nuns first began their brainwashing … err … training … 50-plus years ago. God knows everything and knows before you are born your life from beginning to end — but you have free will!

So, if God knows that at the age of 18 I will reject everything I’ve been taught about God and supernatural deities, why wouldn’t he put something in my life to lead back to “The Way”? If not the proverbial burning bush, a vision at a key time, a vital moment when spirituality is playing a part in my life?

Like, on March 16, 1996 when I had the massive heart attack while waiting for a police officer to write a ticket for me in Mira Mesa. Once the ambulance arrived the paramedics loaded me in and began to do their thing to save my life. Those who have survived these types of myocardial infarctions know exactly how painful they are: the most horrific pain I’ve felt — ever.

Along with the pain came fear, the likes of which I had not experienced. Really, this was the life or death moment. That nice sports car left at the curb (a Mazda RX-7), all the money in my possession, none of that material stuff had any relevance, with the possible exception of my insurance card.

Years before I had joined a group that suggests finding a “higher power.” I never did, in a conventional sense, but had come to one important conclusion: I wasn’t an atheist. So I learned a couple prayers, mainly for meditative purposes and marched on.

Then the heart attack happened. As I lay on the gurney, scared to death (what a funny pun) listening to the paramedics doing their thing, I asked the Big Question: “Am I going to die?”

There were two paramedics in the ambulance and one never said a word to me until I asked that question. His answer: “Focus.”

All right. That succeeded in ramping up the fear. So I closed my eyes — and was promptly told not to fall asleep — and said what is affectionately known as my “morning routine:” two prayers and a little moment of introspection and gratitude. Instantaneously all the fear was replaced by total serenity. It’s not a feeling or moment easily described. There was absolute peace, a warm comfort and an assurance that whatever happened was going to be okay and that dying was as acceptable as living.

Here’s the interesting thing about that experience: there was nothing denominational about it. No vision of any deity, Christian or otherwise, no voice saying, “Tim, this is God talking and the nuns were right.”

Those three or four minutes in the ambulance confirmed what I believed: there was this greater spirit, higher power in this universe that could bring, at the very least, comfort to my life.

The point of that story being I’m not attacking people with spiritual beliefs or even the religious views I do not share. Most of us have some kind of spiritual belief, even if it is just in the connectedness we feel between each other.

So here we are in 2012, watching these ads for Christian Mingle on TV. They want us to join and find God’s match for us, but their advertising also says God is telling us it’s up to us to find that right person.

Curious, I decided to check them out and try a “free” membership. To start you have to answer a few questions, give up some contact and personal info and write a little something about yourself. Then you get some pop-up ads, one of which tells you to hurry! Pay the monthly price and upgrade your account! I didn’t.
 Here’s a tip: if you’re really interested and want to join, cancel your membership and they will offer you two months for the price of one: $29.95.

Obviously the owners of the site are doing it for profit. There is a membership fee and there are ads on the sight, aligned in much the same fashion as we find on Facebook. And that’s okay. People have been using religion to make a living for millennia. People trade on the name of God all the time, from commerce to politics and even entertainment. Tim Tebow is the latest example.
 The Denver Broncos management did the right thing when they designated Tebow their starting quarterback for the 2012 season.

But, from reading a large portion of their information it appears the owners of this site are true believers of Christianity. They have an online Bible, the verse of the day and various other features that indicate these people are either committed Christians — or some very good con artists. But I doubt that’s the case.

That’s not what makes me blanche whenever that commercial comes on TV. It’s this assertion that searching an online website for someone to be your mate will help you find “God’s match.” If it truly were God’s match, why would you have to search? Wouldn’t God put that person in your life and you’d know?

Seriously, what’s to stop a person like me from creating a profile under completely false pretenses? For a con artist, lying a little to sign up for the site and then creating a faux life for the purpose of taking advantage of people is quite easy.

If you choose a con artist, after perusing all the profiles Christian Mingle says best match you, well, whose fault is that? If God were responsible for finding your mate, then wouldn’t God be equally responsible for putting that con artist in your life?

What’s disturbing is these people make this claim, albeit in a backhanded way, that somehow God, in its Christian manifestation, is playing a direct role in putting couples together. All we have to do is create our profiles and pay the subscription fee. Then God will direct us to the right person to be our mate.

No doubt most people can figure out if someone is right for them after a couple dates. You might have some kind of physical attraction to the person but every time you think of talking to or seeing them again, you just don’t want to pick up that phone so the odds of getting too deeply involved with someone who can harm you is rather low.

But the emotionally vulnerable in society are always easy prey for the con artists of the world and religion is one of their favorite vehicles for scams. And being that this is done over the Internets, Christian Mingle could easily be used by con artists to prey on the vulnerable, even though they take precautions to protect their members from that type of person.

The question you have to ask yourself before you sign up for this or any other site that claims some sort of divine inspiration or direction: would God actually involve him (or her) self in a for profit venture? Does God want you to help make someone else rich while you’re looking for a mate? It just doesn’t square with the teachings of Christianity.

I’m not against Christian Mingle, may the site have a long existence and prosper. But what the site really does is put people in front of you who claim to share your religious beliefs. Nothing More. Claiming “God” is having a hand in who you choose for a mate seems quite cynical.

The old adage that’s been with us for centuries still applies: buyer beware.

This is what really bugs me about this site: 85% of Americans believe in a Higher Power — God — and well over half of those people believe in the Christian version. I wish I had thought of this first. It looks to be a great money-maker.

Now I’m going to go back to looking at naked women on the Internets … and crying about the Green Bay Packers losing to the New York Giants.
•••• •••• •••• ••••
Just a short post script; In case anyone was wondering, I got out of the ticket!

Stephen Colbert For President!

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:01:00 -0700

This just in: Stephen Colbert is running for president! If you watched his show on Comedy Central Wednesday Night, you’ll remember his segment about him having 5% support in polls taken of Republicans in South Carolina, the next state on the primary calendar. He told his loyal viewers — his “Nation” — to tune in Thursday Night to find out if he would actually enter the race, at least in the Palmetto State.

Well he has, sort of, in a non-committal, let’s start an exploratory committee kind of way. If you’ve been watching The Colbert Report for the past 12 months, you know he started a PAC, a Super Pac that allows the donors to remain anonymous. Just for unfettered disclosure, I donated to his PAC when donors had to be identified, just to see my name flash across the screen in the crawl at the bottom of the picture.

Colbert, or maybe his show, hired a Republican attorney and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, Trevor Potter, to get his Super PAC started and then Thursday Night Potter helped Colbert legally hand over his Super PAC to his fellow Comedy Central host, Jon Stewart.

If you haven’t seen it then click on Colbert’s Website and watch it online. The episode is hilarious. Well, most of his shows are funny. There was that one show when Potter told Colbert he could make his PAC the type that could keep all if its donors secret and Colbert was almost speechless — and it looked absolutely genuine. And then Potter pulled the necessary paper work out of his brief case and Colbert promptly signed it.

Shortly thereafter Colbert asked how the secret PAC was different from money laundering. To his credit, Potter said it wasn’t much different, if at all.

What does it say about the Republican field if a comedian, who is actually a moderate, if not a liberal, out-polls most of the party’s declared candidates? How will it impact the race? It’s unlikely Colbert will have a serious impact politically, but what it will do is provide his fans with months of comedic material other comics (i.e. Jay Leno, Dave Letterman, Jimmy Fallon, Craig Ferguson and his pal, Jon Stewart) can only comment on during their shows.

In a larger scope, Colbert’s entry into the South Carolina Republican Primaries brings his mockery of the system to a far bigger audience than what he has on The Colbert Report. For at least the past six months pundits on both sides of the aisle have been shocked, humored, dumfounded and disappointed by the field, often at the same time.

The money being spent to keep the most unviable of candidates in the race has angered many people, pundits and public alike. A year ago conservatives were beside themselves with glee at the Citizens United decision from the Supreme Court that essentially said money equals free speech—well, free in the “you can’t shut me up” sort of way.

That’s how Colbert’s Super Pac, “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow,” came about; Colbert set out to show the world just how easy and immoral the current political system is now that unlimited money can corrupt any federal election, in particular, the presidential election.

People have been crabbing about money in our political system for decades. Years ago Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) authored a campaign finance bill that was passed and signed into law. Well, actually, it wasn’t that bill George W. Bush signed into law in 2002. Instead, the version presented by the House of Representatives was signed — but it still got to keep the more impressive moniker, “McCain-Feingold.”
 Don’t you just love politics!

Okay, like any bill that might have a great good for the American populace, before it could get to the president’s signing pen it had to be changed, or in the case of any campaign finance bill, rendered toothless. You seriously think most, or even half, of 535 members of Congress are in favor of turning off their money spigot? Come here, my naïve little friend. Have I got a deal for you!

But watering down McCain-Feingold wasn’t enough. Nooooo … my dear friends! The parts that weren’t watered down or eliminated actually restricted “Big Business” and Labor from spending unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns. So, various entities started taking the government to court over the bill, culminating in the 2010 decision by the Supreme Court affectionately titled, “Citizens United.”

Now, corporations are people too and money equals free speech.

Enter the best satirist of our time, and maybe all time: Stephen Colbert. Not only is he mocking the sale of our political system, but he’s exposing the biggest lie of all: the Super PAC’s are independent from the candidates. It’s hard to believe anyone actually believes that lie, but Colbert and now Stewart, can put it on display, as only a couple of serious satirists can. Now I’m anxious to see how Colbert skewers “exploratory committees.”

Until Colbert and Stewart came along, the joke was on us. Maybe they can reverse that punchline.

As a donor I actually received a press release via e-mail:

Under New Management!

BASIC CABLE, USA – Americans For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, an FEC registered Super PAC, today announced the addition of Jon Stewart to its executive board (along with the subtraction of Stephen Colbert).

With this change the group, which had been known colloquially as Colbert Super PAC, can now be referred to as The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC. They have already begun updating all of their letterhead with sharpie.

“I am excited to take the reins of this completely independent organization, and begin to air ads in South Carolina,” said New President and Noncommunication Director Jon Stewart. “But I want to be clear: Stephen and I have in no way have worked out a series of Morse-code blinks to convey information with each other on our respective shows.”

Colbert is currently exploring a run for President of the United States of South Carolina. Because of this, he cannot be associated with any Super PACs, although he has asked Americans For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow to forward any periodicals of an “adult nature.” *

Americans A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow is an independent, expenditure-only committee founded by Stephen Colbert in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, then handed down to Jon Stewart like a pair of old dungarees.

###

Thank you Stephen for pointing out what ought to be obvious. Let’s hope the American public can tear itself away from the Kardashians and Dancing With The Stars long enough to find out why this issue matters and why they ought to do something about it.

Take It Easy

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:13:00 -0700

The new season of Ghost Hunters has started, the first location being King’s Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. The second location was shot in New Hampshire, almost in time for the primaries.

The amusement park had the voice of a little girl in several locations, mostly in the International Restaurant. Anyway, ghosts and the paranormal aside, it was impossible to ignore the great roller coasters in the park, the most epic being The Beast, the longest wooden roller coaster in the world.

You know, I’ve never considered Cincinnati a place to visit (sorry Dave), but after seeing King’s Island, maybe there’s a reason to go. Not only is there an amusement park, it houses the Cincinnati Zoo and an aquarium.

That’s the thing about America, we have many, maybe hundreds, of places that don’t get mentioned much, if at all, in anyone’s list of vacation destinations.

Years ago I was traveling cross country by Greyhound Bus and happened to land on the historic old U.S. Highway 66. As the bus stopped at every crossroads that called itself a town, I couldn’t help notice the scenery and architecture that was straight out of the 1950’s, before the Interstate System made the Mother Road a relic. And in spite of the fact that preservation groups were doing everything in their power to preserve the historic nature of the highway, U.S. Highway 66 was officially decommissioned in 1985.

The point is if you want to take a road trip with interesting sites that don’t appear on any popular travel web sites, Historic Route 66 would be a good trip, especially from Amarillo, Texas to Santa Monica, California. Or you could do the entire route, from Chicago to Santa Monica, although it’s hard to follow in some spots. In every state though, you’ll find stretches that have been designated National Historic Sites.
 I’ve actually done the entire trip, from right around Chicago, IL to Los Angeles, CA. My suggestion: take a full five says at least to do it.

Interesting places like old time gas stations or the stretch of highway in Arizona between Kingman and Oatman, two lanes, one in each direction, in the desert. Drive that once and travel back in time when Oklahomans left their homes in the Dust Bowl for greener pastures in the Salinas Valley of California.

In Arizona, the highway cuts through the Painted Desert and just off the highway you can travel to one of the greatest natural wonders of the world, the Grand Canyon. Or take a short detour to that corner in Winslow, Arizona that the Eagles sing about in their song, “Take It Easy.”
 “Well, I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, Such a fine sight to see, there’s a girl my lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me ...”
 There’s A Park that now commemorates the corner and a festival is held every year. Probably the center of the Universe for flatbed Fords during the festival.

Or picture the movie Easy Rider, when Captain America (Peter Fonda as Wyatt) and his friend Billy (Dennis Hopper) went to New Orleans in search of freedom. As it turns out, “Freedom’s just another word.”

Such is the historic nature of America’s Main Street.

Another road trip I’ve taken on several occasions is the ride up the coast of California, from Malibu to San Francisco. There is awesome scenery with places of interest that spark little of that slick commercialized appeal found at more conventional tourist destinations. So much in fact you feel like stopping every ten minutes just to take pictures. It’s one long post card or maybe a coffee table book worth of pictures. Imagine sunset over the Pacific Ocean from a vantage point in Big Sur.

Big Sur … on one of these trips up the coast my brother Carl and I stayed in a cabin in Big Sur, off-season when the price was right and the beach, a 15-minute walk from the lodge, was all but deserted. Sadly, all the photos from that trip have been lost.

We once made the trip when Clint Eastwood was mayor of Carmel. Unfortunately we never did meet the mayor.

Most recently, about a year ago, my brother Tony and I drove from Parker, Colorado up through Estes Park to Rocky Mountain National Park to Trail Ridge Rd, the highest paved road in the world. We made the trip a year ago when the mountains were full of snow and the road was closed.

Back when Tony married his lovely wife Judy members of the family, with the beautiful Lainey driving, took the trip in June when the road was open. Yes, Young Dan pooped all over everything and everyone thought it was funny, even Grandma.

You know what makes the trip, more than the travel and various destinations? The company you keep while on that trip. You need patience and serenity, especially when traveling through barren stretches. And you need to be comfortable enough for those times when there is no conversation for hours as you pass one cactus after another.

Carl and I made the trip from San Diego to Denver a couple times, passing through areas so uninhabited the signs warn you there are no services for 110 miles and do not get out of your vehicle at night because there are bandits on the road. That’s on I-70 in Utah.

Once we stopped in Green River, Utah for the night at a motel we had stayed at before. Carl smoked so we always got a smoking room. Well, as usual the place had few guests — we were there off-season again — and figured there would be no problem getting a room at a great price. The woman at the check-in insisted there were no smoking rooms available and we should try another motel. So we did, across the street. Such is the character of Small Town, Middle America.

One of the trips we made was for Thanksgiving. That was the time I so famously forgot to bring shoes or boots. You know, Southern California! Shoes? We don’t need no stinking shoes in Southern California! We wear sandals!

So, walking out the door I was trying to remember what I was forgetting. The camera! Back into the condo I went, but there was still something niggling at my thoughts. Off we went in my very nice Lincoln Mark VIII up I-15. As we approached the border of Nevada we began seeing more signs for the casinos and then one for the Las Vegas Outlet Center, featuring Payless Shoe Source. That’s when it hit me: I didn’t have any shoes or boots.

Sheepishly I called the Parker Clan to see if they had any spare shoes or boots and spoke to the lovely Judy who seemed incredulous. How could anyone forget shoes? She didn’t really know and probably thought I was pulling her leg.

On we traveled, through Nevada, stopping at Mesquite and then on to Utah where we saw a sign for a survivalist store in a little town, the name of which escapes me. I got some hiking boots and a bag of socks for less than forty bucks and off we went to Colorado. A trip that will live in notoriety, but we enjoyed it — until we got to Grand Junction, CO and saw the signs saying chains were required to get over the Vail Pass on I-70.

Panic set in until we found out chains were only required for large vehicles, we didn’t need them. But the ride up over the pass was treacherous enough, with only one lane open in each direction. We stopped in Vail at some rest stop that was packed several feet deep with snow, just to calm my nerves.

My advice: save that trip for the summer months and even then you might get snow.

Where were we going with this all those hours ago? Oh yeah, the new season of Ghost Hunters started. You know, I don’t take LSD anymore and my mind still wanders off into these little tangents. What are you gonna do?

Anyway, it was a nice start to the new season, certainly not among their best episodes although the EVP’s were pretty eerie. Maybe next week I’ll actually write about Ghost Hunters — or not. I wonder though, how many haunted locations there might be on or near Highway 66. Someone other than me ought to ask. I’ll just get lost in some tangent.

A True Hollywood Story (Sort Of)

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 12:01:00 -0700

If you’re a fan of the Girls Next Door, then you know this is the final season with the three girlfriends as girlfriends. Kendra Wilkinson, the youngest one who is from San Diego, is getting married to a football player, Hank Baskett, wide receiver of the Philadelphia Eagles.

She claims she no longer approves of Hugh Hefner’s lifestyle, according to US magazine, and when she did approve of Hef’s lifestyle, she wasn’t getting any from the Old Man so she had to go out and sneak in some sex — in other words, she cheated on Hef.
 According to Girlfriend #2, Bridget Marquardt (my favorite of the three! She has all those college degrees!), since getting engaged Kendra has become “conservative,” she no longer flashes her boobs at everyone who asks!

Everyone has no doubt wondered if Hef banged all three girlfriends, assuming that he probably did since Hefner has always been notorious for wanting as many sex partners as his stamina could allow, but Kendra’s revelations about having to sneak sex leads us to believe that the only woman in that foursome getting’ some was Holly Madison. What’s the point of having a couple hotties living under your roof as your girlfriends if you’re not having sex with them?

It wasn’t just for the TV show on E!, Hef was keeping multiple girlfriends for years before the show ever aired. The rumors are, Holly Madison, Hef’s main girl and the one who actually shared his bed was controlling things around the Mansion.
 The Playboy Mansion is capitalized because it is titled. When people discuss parties and other occasions at the home, they always refer to it as “The Mansion,” as if it isn’t possible there could be any others.

The breakup became public when Holly was seen being dreamy with MindFreak Criss Angel. The ensuing drama was tabloid Nirvana. The three girlfriends leaving the Mansion, all immortalized on the various gossip sites and in all the gossip magazines.

Here’s why all of it is important. Well, none of it is important really, but it makes for interesting reading and water cooler gossiping plus, it actually has an impact on Playboy magazine, a publication I’ve known and loved for … err … a long time now.

I do have favorite Playmates going back to 1968 and I can name them all without looking them up: Cynthia Myers, December 1968; Jill De Vries, October 1975; Christina Smith, March 1978; Sandy Cagle, February 1980 (hometown girl); Roberta Vasquez, November 1984; Tawnni Cable, June 1989; Julie Anne Clarke, March 1991, Deanna Brooks, May 1998, Lindsey Vuolo, November 2001, Nicole Narian, January 2002; Colleen Marie, August 2003; Sandra Hubby, March 2004; Hiromi Oshima, June 2004; Athena Lundberg, January 2006; Cassandra Lynn, February 2006; Heather Rene Smith, February 2007, Spencer Scott, October 2007 and A.J. Alexander, May 2008. Their centerfolds are vivid in my memory!

Just as important as the Playmates … well, almost as important as the Playmates, is the great reading. In the March 1978 issue for instance, we were treated to not only Playmate Christina Smith, but also the interview with Bob Dylan. In November 1976, the Playmate was Patti McGuire, who went on to be the 1977 Playmate of the Year and wife of tennis legend Jimmy Connors, but it also featured an interview with soon to be president Jimmy Carter.

Then there are the articles and fiction by people like P.J. O’Rourke, Kurt Vonnegut, Gore Vidal, Alex Haley, and William F. Buckley. It was the first non-sports publication I read that had substantive articles on sports, giving analysis of college and professional football and basketball, as well as Major League Baseball before the seasons. They rarely featured the Green Bay Packers and the Milwaukee Brewers as I thought they should be treated, but otherwise, pretty decent coverage, if you like sports.

Playboy magazine has been, at least since the 1960’s, a great read. Seriously. I could rarely afford any of the cool items that have been featured in the various gift issues, but it was always nice looking.

So, back to Holly Madison. She was never a Playmate, but was briefly featured on the Playboy website, the Cyber Club, in 2002, but once she became a girlfriend, the girlfriend, the feature was pulled. No such action for girlfriend number two, Bridget Marquardt. Kendra wasn’t even a Cyber Girl; Hef met her when she was body-painted for a Mansion party.

Okay, now back to Madison. When, according to the reports, she and Hef found out he was shooting only blanks, Holly had a change of heart. She wanted to get married and have children, tame the old beast and keep him for herself, forgetting (we assume) that had been tried before with little (no) success and Hef was still legally married to his second wife, Kimberly Conrad. She and the two boys sired by Hef, reside in a home literally next door to the Mansion.

Such a Hollywood story!

So, before Holly had her falling out with Hef, he appointed her a photo editor for the magazine and Holly got to have a hand in picking the Playmates. Well, the readership, if you go by the remarks in the forum of the Cyber Club, was skeptical of Holly’s influence. She wanted to fill the space left behind when long time West Coast photo editor Marilyn Grabowski retired. Grabowski not only had a woman’s eye for beauty, she was also well aware of what men wanted.

The question was, would Holly Madison offer the same? As it turns out, if you believe people connected to the operation, Holly Madison wasn’t well liked by the West Coast staff, and she began to choose women for Playmate based on whether they would appeal to her man. If Holly thought a model would be to Hef’s liking, she would eliminate the woman. The gossip being, Holly already had two rivals, friendly rivals mostly, living in the Mansion and she didn’t want any more women catching Hef’s fancy. That became, the gossip goes, her over-riding criteria.

Now, a lot can be said for gossip, regardless of who spills it and most of what can be said about gossip is that it may have a kernel of truth, but is usually suffused with speculation and just flat out lies and exaggeration. There’s a lot that can be said for exaggeration: it makes any story better!

But here’s the twist that makes you smile and go, “Hmmm …” Last year the magazine went on its hunt for the 55th Anniversary Playmate, a ritual that takes place every five years. This time they used YouTube and Playmate aspirants created videos and submitted them to Holly’s YouTube group. Thousands of videos. You’d probably be surprised how many women — young and old — want to be a Playmate.
 I did watch … err … a few …

In these last few episodes of the current season of The Girls Next Door, the selection process is spotlighted and the model who did become the 55th Anniversary Playmate was a Romanian woman who also happened to be the Playmate of the Year in the Romanian version of the magazine.

She was not Holly’s choice, according to these same inside sources and that can be confirmed by watching the TV show. What was really interesting is that according to the sources, Hef wanted to spend his time with Dasha Astafieva, the 55th Anniversary Playmate and the three “official” girlfriends were jealous — they didn’t want an interloper in their ménage á quatre. If that is true, it was a battle the three girlfriends were going to lose.

So, let me add my twist to the twist in this story. I mean, what the Hell, what’s the fun of passing on gossip if you can’t embellish it with your own bullshit? News of the breakup of the famous television quartet coincided with the news that the 55th Anniversary Playmate had been selected. The breakup then, in my wildly exaggerated imagination, had less to do with Hef shooting blanks and was more likely due to Hef’s wandering eyes — all three of them.

He’s always said he is not a monogamous-minded man, even when he was in love with a woman, like Kimberly Conrad. It was the reason that marriage ended, for all practical purposes. In interviews while the Girls Next Door was on the air, he has confirmed as much. Why would he, in his 80’s, change that lifestyle? Hef is living his fantasy, 60-plus years after going for it.

So now, as the final episodes of the season unfold, it will be all the more interesting to see how it ended and maybe we’ll see exactly what broke up the quartet.

As if it really is important. It’s a true Hollywood story, in that fictional Hollywood way.

Ad Nauseam

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:01:00 -0700

It’s been a while, five days to be exact. Been busy with a special occasion for a super secret service organization. Totally out of character, I volunteered to co-host the event. Easily the best decision I made was to find the right people to help and handle specific projects, like preparing the food. Everything went well, so well the event was as boring as it should have been.

Did you see the video of the Australian woman who went bungy jumping and her bungy chord broke? She survived.

Then there’s football. Yes, the Green Bay Packers had the weekend off. The New York Giants beat the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, winning the opportunity to face the Packers in Lambeau Field. It’s the playoffs so the Giants could win. Sunday’s game was really no contest. The Falcons could only manage to score two points — a safety.

The New Orleans Saints, winners of Super Bowl XLIV (that’s 44 in American) beat the Detroit Lions and travel to San Francisco to meet the 49er’s. That’s going to be a good game, unlike the Giants-Falcons game. Of course, if you’re a Giants fan it was a great game.

Also on Saturday the Houston Texans beat the Cincinnati Bengals, very convincingly. The Houston Texans, newest team in the league, are pretty much in control of their destiny. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the made it into the title game. They have to get passed the Baltimore Ravens, but if you’re a bettin’ kind of person, I’d bet they beat Baltimore.

Remarkably, Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos are really beating the Pittsburgh Steelers — at least in the first half. In the second half the Steelers made such a comeback they tied the game, sending it to over time. On the first play of over time Tim Tebow threw a game-winning 80-yard touchdown pass to DeMaryius Thomas that had the Denver fans screaming and left the Steelers shocked. Stunned.

In about ten seconds the Denver Broncos, led by Tim Tebow, sent the Steelers home to Pittsburgh, Penn. Tim Tebow, easily the most controversial quarterback in pro football this season. Remember when Tony Romo was the talk of blogs and message boards because he was banging famous singers and actresses? Who wouldn’t want to be between the legs of Jessica Simpson?

And let’s not forget Matt Leinart. He was a USC QB who won two national championships and the Heisman Trophy. Besides not playing up to the potential his former team, the Arizona Cardinals, expected, he was a party animal and was caught, on film, sharing a hot tub with two — no, four — young beauties. For some reason that was “bad.” Same with Tom Brady and his bachelor ways.

That didn’t seem like a problem in these quarters, hell, were I a young, good-looking, single, football player, I’d be doing them two at a time as well. The problem with Leinart was that “they” didn’t think he was serious enough about winning. With Brady it wasn’t much of a problem because the New England Patriots were winning Super Bowls.

It’s hard to imagine Leinart wasn’t serious about winning, considering his history with USC. This is one of the things about America that makes me shake my head in wonderment. Ball players — and politicians — aren’t allowed to enjoy life while they are working. You practice till you drop, study your playbook and then go to a party and jump in a hot tub with two young coeds. No problem.

We see it in politics as well. When the president was going on vacation with his family in August his critics, most of whom were on vacation with their families, berated him for leaving town while Congress was arguing about the debt ceiling. Then there was the Newt Gingrich controversy. He was criticized for having a half million-dollar line of credit at Tiffany’s. If he and his current wife can afford it, who cares? It was a nonsensical criticism.

Going on a Med cruise a week after declaring his candidacy for president seemed foolish though and left people wondering if he was truly serious about running for president. His staff apparently didn’t think so because they all quit.

Back to controversial NFL quarterbacks. With Leinart, Brady, Ben Rothlisberger and others, the controversy was over their licentious lifestyles. With Tim Tebow, the controversy flips to the other end of the spectrum. Now the talk is about Tebow and his religious fervor. The questions I ask are: Why bash Tim Tebow and why now?

Long before Tebow put on professional tights, NFL players have been kneeling and praying before, during and after football games. If you have a team in your locality you see the news about their off field exploits with various churches and religious groups as well. It’s nauseating.

With Tim Tebow it’s a problem and why is a mystery to me. I don’t agree with his religious beliefs, not in the least, but it isn’t new in the National Football League. I’ve been nauseated many times seeing players getting into their prayer circles after games. If other players are able to nauseate the rest of us with their religious beliefs, than Tim Tebow ought to be able to do so as well. My ad nauseam is equal opportunity.

Regardless of his religious bent, Tim Tebow, unlike Matt Leinart, has been busy proving his critics wrong all season. Granted, his team’s season record is no better than two other teams in the same division (Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers) and is only .500, but his team is in the playoffs for yet another round, beating a Pittsburgh team everyone paid to comment on it said would put the Broncos out of the playoffs.

It’s nice to see the sports pundits proven wrong, especially by a guy so many people said wasn’t ready for the NFL. But how much farther will the Broncos go? Their next game is in Foxboro, MA against the New England Patriots. More than likely the Tebow trains stops there. They could win, but it’s highly unlikely.

Tim Tebow has proven he belongs in the NFL and, by most accounts, he’s proven to be a starting quarterback. He has the ambition, will and dedication to win. That, as much as anything else his team has done, has put the Broncos in the divisional round of the playoffs. So I congratulate Tebow and the Denver Broncos. They defied the skeptics and haters and won. May they go far enough to get beaten by the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl.

And if Tebow and his teammates wish to get in one of those prayer circles after the game, go ahead. I’ll be switching over to the HBO before then anyway. But what would really make this season memorable for Tim Tebow and the Broncos: having his picture taken in a hot tub with two young, nude hotties. Now that would spice up the playoffs!

Happy Birthday!

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:01:00 -0700

Today I’m celebrating my 39th Birthday! That’s right, all you wisenheimers who might feel a need to correct the record, I’m celebrating my 39th Birthday.

As I recall, on my 39th Birthday we, Brother Carl and I, went to Las Vegas. We had a great time, as usual. We did things like gamble, drink “free” soft drinks, eat at restaurants, not buffets, and ummm … experience the nightlife, so to speak.

We went to Vegas a lot in the ’90’s, maybe four-to-five times a year so maybe the birthday was just another excuse to make the drive from Sandy Eggo to Lost Wages.

So, today we are celebrating my 39th Birthday!

Really don’t know what else to say about this day. The Iowa Caucuses are over and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum came is second to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by eight votes in the Republican Caucuses. President Obama won the Democratic Caucuses. If you’re surprised by that, take your meds.

Texas Governor Rick Perry will most likely drop and out and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich finished fourth and vowed to get some payback on Romney for all the negative ads Romney’s superpac unleashed on Iowa voters this past month that took Gingrich from top of the polls to … err … fourth place in the voting.

Who knows what’s going on in the other campaigns, and quite frankly I don’t care. I’ve been fantasizing about a President Santorum making good on his campaign promise to outlaw birth control. Just imagine driving to Canada — or Mexico — to get your Trusty Trojans.

Did you ever see that movie with Jake Gillin … can’t spell his name, and Anne Hathaway? She plays a woman with Parkinson’s Disease (I think) and her character organizes bus trips to Canada for seniors to get their medications. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there other than going to Mexico to get my Trusty Trojans made me think about this movie.

Jake Gillin … someone please spell it for me … plays a pharmaceutical salesman who is one of the first to sell Viagra. Anyway, forget all that. I was just trying to remember the name of the movie, which now will require me to Google it. Anyway, doesn’t matter. If you have prurient tendencies, as I might have, or you probably have, then you would like this movie because not only does Jake What’s-his-name get stark raving nude, so does Anne Hathaway!

So, I’ve just Googled the movie, which gave me the correct spelling of Jake’s last name: Gyllenhaal. Great actor; he was in Brokeback Mountain and … a few others. The name of the movie in which he and Anne Hathaway get totally nekkid and have lots of sweaty sex is Love and Other Drugs. So, if you think either of these people is totally hot and would like to see one or the other totally nude, rent this movie.

Back to going to Mexico to get my Trusty Trojans. President Rick Santorum, defender of the faith, America and the family. He would annul all gay marriages in America, attack Iran and make the wealthy wealthier without adding to the tax burden on the Middle Class, at least not as much as the other Republican candidates for president.

But this isn’t about politics, although the Iowa Caucuses is a big story. This is about me and my birthday. Yes, another year. Since the last one I’ve been in love, lost my job due to losing my voice and, really, the saddest news, lost my lovely sister Elaine to cancer. I’m going to miss her forever.

So, the happy news: I share this birthday with my younger brother Ken, born just eight years after; and we share this birthday with the lovely Playboy model Erin Fox!

So Happy Birthday Ken and Erin! May you have many more!

A New Year

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 06:01:00 -0700

Years ago New Year’s Eve was a big deal with parties in venues with hundreds of people. This year it was a nice affair in the home of good friends on a quiet street with great company. The midnight hour passed and here it is, January 1, 2012. Another day, but with a new calendar on the wall.

What about 2011? My opinion of the year, at the moment, is pretty low. My lovely sister Elaine succumbed to cancer in June. Man, the idea of a life with out our Little Lainey still remains incomprehensible. Just because I missed the sound of her voice I dialed her number, hoping to get her voice mail. Some young woman answered and that was that. Interestingly enough,

Lainey’s husband Gordon sent a package of letters and photos she had stored away for decades, including a few from my Marine Corps days. The one letter was funny. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Then of course there are the health issues and the lack of employment issues and a disability check that is so small, were I better situated it would be funny.

Haven’t ridden the Trusty Trek in months and stopped riding every day over a year ago. The lack of physical activity is showing, not only in pictures and on the scales, but in things like triglycerides and glucose levels as well. That’s where it really counts.

Can’t forget about Scotty. His is a tragic story and the best news about that is he is a reminder of just how bad life can really get sometimes.

You know what’s really cool about life? Friends. While typing this on Saturday, Mike called and we talked for a while. What a boost to my spirits! Mike and I never fail to make each other laugh! We inhabit opposite ends of the political spectrum, often the starting point of our humor.

So we got together and had lunch at the Monastery in Mission Valley.

He’s going to the Grand Canyon next week. Man, I’m envious! He’ll have a great time. In December 1989 my brother Carl and I visited the Grand Canyon. It’s an inspiring place. Words cannot adequately describe the beauty and grandeur of the place, especially in winter when snow covers the North Rim. In the morning as the sun rises you can watch the walls change color, from the deep, dark regal purples to the blues, reds, oranges, and nearly white tans. That’s really one of the greatest shows on Earth.

The high points of 2011: they always include family and friends. Didn’t win the lottery although I once got $115 from some scratchers! Then there’s Friday Nights with the buds: Dan, Eric and John. This past week Eric couldn’t attend, but the lovely Liz did! There were a couple picnics with the Mira Mesa Crew and arguing with Keith, via Facebook, about politics and then realizing friendship trumps ideology, although he was in the Navy, but what the Hell, even that’s forgivable.

Can’t forget the Packers won the Super Bowl! There was some poll that registered the most talked about news stories of 2011 and the Packers were number two on the list! Can’t remember what was the most talked about news of 2011, so don’t ask.

The past year, the judgment is still forthcoming. This New Year, who knows? I’d like to smile more; have more reasons to smile. 2011 was the year of the broken heart and that’s how 2012 is starting. Time heals all wounds as the saying goes, and the healing starts not on the inside, but from the outside and then finds its way in. It’s an inside job, but often we need a little assist from the outside.

That assist will start with this: my one resolution is to live as best as possible in the spirit of Little Lainey’s generous spirit and eternal smile! Every day should start with love. So I’ll start this day and this year with gratitude for life with Lainey and all my family and friends.

Happy New Year.

On The Wire

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:05:00 -0700

Merry Christmas once again and congratulations to the Packers for lining up home field advantage for the playoff and to Drew Brees for breaking Dan Marino’s single season passing record — at home on Monday Night Football no less! That’s how to do it! And they have home field until that time when and if they meet the Green Bay Packers, which would be for the NFC Championship game.

For the past two nights and wee hours of the morning I’ve been having my own little TV marathon, watching the first season of the best show to ever be on television: HBO’s The Wire. Right now they have the first eight episodes of the first season (2002) on HBO On Demand, which is like having DVR without paying for it.

All five seasons were good, but the first is my favorite. The program grew out of an HBO documentary, The Corner, about the drug trade in Baltimore, MD and the politics of failure inherent in the power structure of that city, as well as the acclaimed TV program Homicide, another show about Baltimore police.

We grew to love many of the characters, like Detective McNulty, the alcoholic neer-do-well who’s lack of civility and respect for authority makes him a driving force behind the special investigations unit. Then there’s his Homicide partner Bunk Moreland, another “natural police” and the often-quoted bad guy, Omar Little. “Omar don’t scare.”

These two nights of The Wire marathon just happened to coincide with the holiday programming on MSNBC, The Squeeze, which was all about cultivating snitches in the drug trade, in and out of prison. The parallels were uncanny. The producers of The Wire did their best to keep it real so we saw snitches as well as the gangs of bad guys doing what they do.

On the MSNBC program, it was real and the snitches were helping police in the Chicago, IL area drop one drug house after another.

One of the parallel messages, a fact that has been known for nearly as long as there’s been a “War on Drugs:” if and when you take out one drug dealer, two more spring up to take his (or her) place. More importantly, the amount of drugs on the streets doesn’t diminish for more than a few days as the dealers set up new distribution points and open new drug houses.

Or, new dealers move in to pick up the slack. On The Wire, the Barksdale Gang was slowly pushed out by the police going after them and then, after the Barksdales were weakened by the police, they were muscled out by a younger, more ruthless dealer by the name of Marlowe.

Then of course stick-up man Omar became the thorn in Marlowe’s side.

Tell you what: if you haven’t seen The Wire but were (are) a fan of Homicide and the earliest incarnation of Law&Order, rent or buy the DVD’s of The Wire. It goes were the commercial and basic cable TV shows can’t go, with graphic language and scenes and the story arc of The Wire first developed over two seasons and then expanded to include the Port of Baltimore and then the diminishing news publishing industry.

Another message of the show: no matter the industry, the drug trade, law enforcement, organized labor and news, they all have a “game.” One of the recurring themes in the show is that as bad guys get killed the others say this was the life they chose when they got in “the game.”

Then we see how law enforcement is managed, all the politics that gets in the way of good police work, some of it fueled by continuing budget cuts that take personnel and resources off the streets and that becomes a game as one police or elected official tries to gain power and territory of their own, just like the drug dealers.

And the politics of managing labor unions and running the editorial staff of a newspaper. All have their own “game.”

What was really interesting, disturbing and ultimately a sad commentary on our present state of affairs, on The Squeeze one drug unit commander spoke about his dwindling budget, the number of officers that were leaving the force and not being replaced, adding to his biggest fear: taking on more responsibilities with fewer officers.

When we couple that with the reality that the drug trade has only expanded in recent years, spreading out from the inner cities into the suburbs, the prospects for the drug cartels looks so much better. For those of us who live in these cities and suburbs, the prospects aren’t so good.

One issue not on the agenda for any of the debates and definitely not in President Obama’s talking points is the legalization of all drugs. For whatever reason, candidates want to stick with the “law and order” mantra about drugs, which is: let’s continue to throw billions into that money pit, doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.

Which brings up season three of The Wire. Frustrated with the lack of any progress, real or imagined, with the drug trade, a police major, Bunny Colvin, decides to pursue a strategy outside the box: he makes an area of Baltimore that is nothing but empty, boarded up housing units a drug dealing zone in which gangs and dealers can sell drugs without interference from law enforcement. The only rule: no violence.

It works well, crime is down significantly and everyone is praising Bunny for bringing crime under control in his district. Problem is, no one, outside of his district staff, knows about the drug-dealing zone, called “Hamsterdam” by the drug dealers.

The residents know, but no one is complaining because the dealers are no longer sitting on their porches or blocking the corners of their neighborhoods. All goes well for a while until a reporter from a local newspaper finds out about Hamsterdam. He starts digging and has the story. So, before everyone in the police chain of command gets a surprise in the newspaper, Major Colvin starts introducing everyone, including the mayor and commissioner, to Hamsterdam.

There was a big outcry from politicians and civic leaders — none from the residents whose homes were spared, if only briefly, from all the drug-related crime—the police major is forced to resign and the success of creating the drug zone is hidden behind the façade of law and order rhetoric from politicians using the moment to further their careers.

It’s no surprise institutes that rate television and crime rated this season of The Wire as the best programming ever on television. The John Marshall Law School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Justice Institute, Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson says The Wire is the leading educational tool on the problems facing urban America.

J.M. Tyree of the Film Quarterly said, “The Wire is in the business of telling America truths about itself that would be unbearable even if it were interested in hearing them.”

Even President Barack Obama says it’s his favorite TV program. One more thing he and I have in common.

So, what about the political and social solutions to the blight of America, the decline of our society in the 21st Century? If we listen to Republicans, we just let these micro communities go, cutting back or removing entirely the social systems that keep some of the residents in these blighted areas from falling deeper into poverty and becoming homeless.

Others want to stimulate the economy and put more money, i.e. more police officers, firefighters, nurses and teachers, into the communities, which is actually a good thing. But the complexities of the problem require some serious direction and a drastic shift in strategy.

Number one: stop fighting a losing war on drugs. Start the process of legalization and get conventional distribution of these drugs set up. No doubt tobacco and alcohol manufacturers, not to mention the quasi-legal growers and distributors in states like California, are more than willing to step up to the plate. Collect taxes like we do with alcohol and tobacco.

Set up systems to provide recovery from addiction, including tobacco, for anyone who wants it. It’s been proven over the years by many institutions that education and recovery efforts cost a fraction of drug intervention and work far better than fighting a losing war on drugs.

Because there is one fact that stands out more than any other and is often the elephant in the room: the drug problem isn’t one of supply, it’s of demand. As long as there is a percentage of Americans, maybe 25%, who want to at least smoke pot, there will be a drug trade to meet that demand.

Which means the question for us should be this: Do we want that drug trade to be legal, or illegal?

Merry Christmas!

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 06:22:00 -0700

And to all my friends, you know who you are: Ray, Akemi, Terri, Julie, Danny, Roxanne, Roxanne, Bill, Bill (what’s your wife’s name Bill? I’m embarrassed I can’t remember), Mike, Mike, Mike, Mikey, Kelly, Lisa, Brian, Liz and the Long Suffering Rudy, Susan, Suzi, Ilona, Dave and his Entourage, the wisenheimer Dave and his accountant Mike, Curtis, Phil, John (not pictured), Peter, Pete, Paul, Sara, Sarah, Greg, Alan (sorry Alan, no scantily-clad babes today),Keith and the wisenheimer Vicki, George & Jan, Jonesy (We already got too many Mikes, Mike), Tom, Jeff, Jeffrey and Linda, Jerry, Tony (not related), Rauni, Mary Ellen, the other Tim, Heather, Raquel, Shantal and Claudia,
Merry Christmas.

A Short Ride, A Long Story

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:01:00 -0700

Wednesday Morning I got to spend a little time with my friend Ilona. Not much time really, she was just transporting me from Point A to Point B. She had her lovely baby daughter in the car seat.

The lovely Ilona and I have a short history, one of a truly virtuous nature, so it was nice to: A) speak with her on the phone Tuesday, and B) take a ride to Point B with her and catch up a little.

“What kind of a history are you talking about, Tim,” you may be asking? A virtuous one. We met through Bill a little over three years ago and then in March 2009, when I had my heart surgery, Ilona picked me up from the hospital and got me home in one piece. After that she would frequently stop by with healthy food and make sure I was doing okay and getting out there to do my walking.

Always in tow was her young son Spencer who is a pleasurable little guy. Anyway, Ilona did her best to have some of her good, healthy eating habits rub off on me.

So last week while walking home from Point C I happened to stop at the local In-n-Out to use the rest room and the next thing you know, I’m gobbling down a Double-Double and Animal Fries. Who knows how that happens, but it does. In what many consider characteristic fashion, I posted from In-n-Out, using my new Samsung smart phone, “Who can say “NO” to In-n-Out?”

Most people agreed, they couldn’t say “NO” to In-n-Out, but then there was the wisenheimer Vicki who chirped in, “I can!” And of course Ilona said she could as well and then asked, “…what happened Tim? My influence is gone?”

Well, I could not tell a lie … well, I could actually, but with Ilona it would be like lying to Mom, or Mother Superior. She has so much goodness and purity of heart, I couldn’t even lie through the World Wide Internets. “Yes,” I confessed, all her good influence had disappeared. It seemed appropriate that I take a time out for the rest of the afternoon so I got in the comfy chair, turned on the boobtube and promptly fell asleep.

On Wednesday Ilona picked me up at Point A and as we drove to Point B we started chatting. As it turns out, the Lovely Ilona reads this blog — and notices the lightly covered models that, on occasion, adorn this page. Well, it’s like nearly every occasion. Be that as it may, how we got to talking about this blog was quite interesting.

Her pleasant young son Spencer wasn’t with her, we can assume he was off in school, so I remarked that Spencer was born about the time the MTV “reality” show The Hills was on the air and I jokingly said she and her hubby must have been so enamored with that show they named their first born after one of the more odious characters on The Hills, Spencer Pratt.

We laughed and then she remarked about how what a sad coincidence her son was born at the same time The Hills was becoming popular. I had to agree with that one.

Then we got into talking about other members of that cast, in particular the 2008 Playboy Playmate of the Year Jayde Nicole. She was the girlfriend of series regular Brody Jenner, who is the son of Olympic gold Medalist Bruce Jenner who is now currently married to Kris Kardashian, mother to all those Kardashians of Reality TV ad nauseum fame.

Kris had formerly been married to Robert Kardashian, the business lawyer and friend of O.J. Simpson. Kris divorced Robert and married Bruce. Ilona remarked that going from the lawyer to the motivational speaker was a step up.

“Au contraire,” I said. Robert K. was pulling in the big bucks as a lawyer and, well, Bruce, he once had a career in TV after his athletic days and is now making his money as a motivational speaker. Obviously, Bruce Jenner is probably a real standup guy, the kind of person you’d want at your side when the going got tough, but compared to the income of a business lawyer, Bob K. looks like the man!

As an example, I told Ilona that if I had the choice between a super hot babe model that had a comfortable, but modest income or a fairly attractive woman lawyer pulling down 100K per month, I’m going with the lawyer!

Needless to say, Ilona found this hard to believe because she reads this blog and, well, takes notice of the lightly clothed hot babe models that occasionally (like nearly every occasion) adorn this page. “I kid you not,” I said! It’s the lawyer for me!

This is where it got … err … humorous. Ilona started laughing, noting that even the choices I make for myself are shallow, pitting one superficial denominator against another. What can I say? The “deep and meaningful” hasn’t worked for me, so now I’m thinking — fantasizing — outside the box.

But this got me to thinking: in one episode of The Hills Jayde Nicole was out partying in Hollywood with her friends at a bar where her arch rival … I forget her name … was also having a few cocktails with her friends. These two women are/were arch rivals because the rumor was, the babe whose name I can’t remember was supposedly trying to steal Brody Jenner away from Jayde Nicole.
 I just remembered her name: Audrina Patridge. She's a celebrity now, on the covers of all the “Laddie” magazines.

Well lo and behold, one of the friends that was out with Jayde was none other than 2008 Cyber Girl of the Year Jo Garcia! Okay, a few drinks were had by all and an argument ensued and the next thing you know, Jo Garcia is climbing over people to punch some woman upside the head! Now that’s the woman I want for a girlfriend and/or wife: One who’s ready to throw a punch as quickly and directly as Jo Garcia!
 Jo, are you single?

Alas, cooler heads prevailed and no one got punched, but still, she’s the one I’d like to have watching my back! On the other hand, piss her off and that could hurt and, bowing to reality (if only briefly) here, I’m at an age when getting punched would really hurt!

Back in the day, when I was a rootin’, tootin’, lean, green fightin’ machine (USMC), there were more than a few times my face and head met the business end of a punch. For the first time ever I’ll admit it hurt, every time. Once, for days afterwards, although that one wasn’t a punch, but a bar stool that glanced off my back and hit the side of my face. Long story, usual circumstances: too much alcohol, drunk Marines and scantily-clad bar girls.

Anyway, getting punched back then hurt and one can only imagine it hurts even more now. Plus, I no longer drink so I’d actually feel the punch when it happened.

So, that was my far too short ride with the lovely Ilona. I wish her and her family a hearty Happy Holidays and I’d like to extend my offer to baby sit young Spencer when he gets a little older. You’ve been such a good influence on me, I’d like to return the favor!

World of Witchcraft

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 12:01:00 -0700

Okay, this is political. Lately I’ve been staying away from politics. Some of my friends and family members are on the opposite — for some, the far opposite — end of the political spectrum and quite frankly, I value their friendship and love more than my right to shoot my keyboard off with my political views. But, this is just too funny not to talk about. Seriously, it would be funny regardless of the political affiliation!

So, what is funnier: Herman Cain was named in Barbara Walters’ list of 10 Most Fascinating People of 2011. That’s not the funny part, but go ahead and laugh if you feel the need. In the course of her interview of Cain, Walters asked the one-time Republican presidential candidate if he could choose to be a secretary in a presidential cabinet, which would he like to be? His answer: Secretary of Defense. That’s not the funny part, but go ahead and laugh if you feel the need.

No, the funny part is Walters’ reaction: “WHAT?!”

As Jon Stewart pointed out on The Daily Show Wednesday Night, in her nearly 50 years of television experience Barbara Walters has never been shocked by any interview and she’s done’em all, every despot, once living and now dead, some of the sleaziest characters in politics and business and the strange ones in life and entertainment.

So, when Herman Cain can get Barbara Walters’ jaw to drop and her eyes to pop out, that’s a big deal — and funny. Now, Herman Cain, in his short rise and fall in presidential politics, has had some humorous moments, most, if not all, of them unintentional. We’d wait each day for the latest Hermanism, from his not knowing Uzbekistan to the “Smoking Man” TV ad to the “… umm … President Obama was for the rebels, right? …” in Libya.

None of that mattered to his supporters of course, apparently ignorance is a sign of strength, but what brought down the Hermanizer was his being a womanizer — or a masher. This is kind of odd: when women were coming out of the wood work accusing Cain of sexual harassment and assault, his supporters were okay with that, but as soon as a woman stepped forward with evidence they she and Cain carried on a consensual sex affair for 13 years, that’s when Cain’s support began to falter.

So, is that the funniest thing that happened this week in the world of politics, or is it this: Mit Romney got a very public, and laughable, endorsement from failed senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell. That’s not the funny part, but if you remember who she is and feel the need to laugh, please do!

If you don’t remember, she was the Teabagger favorite in Delaware who tanked a legitimate Republican candidate for the Senate seat now filled by Democrat Christopher Coons and once filled by Vice President Joe Biden.

O’Donnell’s bid for the Senate seat was filled with mirth, from the moment she announced ’til the moment she conceded defeat. She was going to lead the new Tea Party Revolution! 2010 was the year of the Tea Party, when a large number of ultra-conservative Republican candidates identified themselves as being Tea Party affiliated.

In a very public primary race, Republican O’Donnell defeated Republican Establishment candidate Mike Castle, who would have almost surely beat Coons, the Democrat, in the general election. O’Donnell’s Tea Party confederates thoroughly trashed Castle in the primary campaign, bringing outrage and tears from the establishment of the Republican Party. Karl Rove wanted to cry.

O’Donnell was one of the Tea Party’s favorites, making the news every night as her tide swept the beach heads of the primary landscape. She was leading Mike Castle in the polls, the Tea Party giddy with the fantasy that they, the true patriots of America, would wrest control of this great nation away from the forces of evil that had gripped it around the throat — them evil Democrats led by that Muslim, extremist, Socialist, Fascist Obama.

Oh, the Teabaggers could feel it coursing through their every fiber, their anticipation building to that climax when they would know, when that would feel, when they would erupt in an orgasmic explosion of ideological triumph, their prayers to take back their country answered in one hallowed blessing of an erection … I mean election. Their democratically elected offspring, they fantasized, was near at hand.

And when O’Donnell emerged victorious on that primary evening, they all leaned back against the headboard of history and reached for that congratulatory cigarette, their appetites momentarily satisfied, until they could once again feel the rush and excitement of electoral supremacy, as they vanquished yet one more foe, that evil Democrat, Chris Coons, in the general election. Why, even his name sounded Black! Christine O’Donnell was a virgin no more; she had finally won an election.

But it was not to be. Throughout her adult life, when running for public office, O’Donnell made the mistake of opening her mouth to state her platforms and agendas and to answer questions. Tea Party candidates should have learned from watching Sarah Palin: never take questions from the media!

O’Donnell must have felt immune because she talked. Maybe her confidence was buttressed by the fact she had appeared on that Satanic TV show, Politically Incorrect years earlier. She had survived hours on TV with Bill Maher so how tough could running for the Senate get? That’s when the trail of videos began to form, leading inexorably, to her political demise.

“I’m not a witch,” O’Donnell told the voters of Delaware, but it was too late. The weight of her past held her candidacy down in the muck and grime of her own bubble-headed words.
 “American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and now we have mice with fully functioning human brains!” O Dear!
 From her anti-masturbation campaign in the mid-’90’s when she was part of MTV’s Sex in the ’90’s series. “If he already knows what pleases him and he can please himself, than why am I in the picture?” Good point! What the fuck are you doing here?
 On that subject, she told the Wilmington News-Journal, “Sex is a covenant between a man and a woman and God. … Your job is to satisfy the other, the giving of oneself to another. Porn turns that around.” Well, porn is big on doing it doggy style.
 Then there were her moments on Politically Incorrect. “I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do.” And, “One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s a little blood there and stuff like that. We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.” Oh no …

The air of victory was sucked out of the rooms of the Republican elite. The retaking of the Senate was near at hand and here was this nincompoop about to scuttle the ship in Delaware. Karl Rove raged on Fox, George Will wrote and wrote and wrote until his fingers got numb and then regurgitated it all on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. But to no avail.

Cue the Doors classic, “The End.”

Who could have imagined there was more to come?

And there was. This past week Christine O’Donnell, in a very public fashion, came out and endorsed Republican faux frontrunner Mit Romney. O’Donnell said she trusted Mitt to do the right thing and one of the traits she admired about him was his consistency. The interviewer on CNN, Carol Costello, said Mitt was known for his inconsistency on important issues. In that not-of-this-world fashion of hers, O’Donnell replied, “He’s been consistent ever since he changed his mind.”

And of course Mitt gratefully accepted O’Donnell’s support, very publicly, calling Christine O’Donnell a great conservative leader. You just can’t make this stuff up and have it be as funny!

Just think: there’s at least six more months of this to come! Poor Karl Rove, he must be looking for an empty grave so he can turn over in it.

Laughter is the best medicine.

Tebowtized

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:01:00 -0700

Best news of the weekend: The Green Bay Packers remain unbeaten! Second best news: the San Diego Chargers won again. Jeez, not only did the Packers win the game, but they clinched the NFC North Division title and home field advantage throughout the playoffs, which means they get a bye in the first round of the playoffs, a big contrast to last year when they played on the road in every game.

Of course, the family in the Denver, CO area has been “Tebowtized.” What a bunch of wisenheimers too. I’m so burned up about this! Not the Tim Tebow thing, no, this goes back over a decade! Fourteen damn years, to be approximately accurate.

This is what happened. My Dear, Beloved, Sister and Brother ended up living in the Denver area for many years. So, they lived through the years when the John Elway-led Denver Broncos went to four Super Bowls only to lose them. For some reason — I don’t understand it — Sister and Brother became Broncos fans!

If you’re having the same reaction I’m having, it’s, “What the Hell’s wrong with those people? Didn’t they grow up in Packerland?”

That’s what I’m saying. They move to Denver — nice place, love the mountains — settle in and raise families and begin to become pillars of the Rocky Mountain community. Of course, they couldn’t watch Packers games every Sunday, they had to make do with what the local networks would give them, which meant the Broncos.

That’s understandable. Out here in Sandy Eggo we get the Chargers every week — if they sell out the “Q” for their home games — and then whatever other games the local networks deign to give us.

Man, if I see another infomercial with pitchman Montel Williams selling some therapy or product I’m going Postal on the local networks — in an electronic, e-mail sort of way. Okay, not really. There’s nothing I can do about the Montel Williams infomercials, or the reruns of dipshit sitcoms they run instead of football.
 Just so you know, in case you don’t, the “Q” is QualComm Stadium, named for the electronics firm that paid millions for naming rights over a decade ago. Before that it was Dick Murphy Stadium, named for the sports commentator who pushed to get a professional football team and the stadium for them to play in, the one the Chargers play in now.
 We used to call the stadium the “Murph.” In fact, we still do.
 If your local networks give you infomercials, Montel or otherwise, or reruns of dipshit sitcoms when they could be giving you professional football games, then you don’t live in a true sports town. San Diego is not a true sports town, which is the main reason the Chargers will move to Los Angeles within a few years.

Back to the Colorado Clan. They’ve been watching the Denver Broncos for decades now and it would be a surprise if they had no affection for the local team. To be honest, I root for the Chargers, if they’re not playing the Packers. Former Chargers quarterback Stan Humphries sold me on the Chargers. He’s my choice for greatest Charger of all time.

Now, fast forward to 1996. The Denver Broncos had been to the Super Bowl four times and lost. The Packers had been to the first two Super Bowls and won them both. But, that was then and this was … err, then, but three decades later. The Packers win the NFC Championship, taking home the George Halas Trophy and headed to New Orleans to face Drew Bledsoe and the New England Patriots.

On January 26, 1997, the Packers beat the Patriots for their 3rd Super Bowl championship and 12th world championship over all.

The next season starts and the Green Bay Packers are the clear favorites. In fact, everyone who is anyone in the sports betting world picks the Packers to win it all. Shoot! I even laid a few bets at Caliente in Tijuana and at a couple casinos in Vegas. It was the smart bet and the Packers would be winning that fourth Super Bowl in Sandy Eggo — at the Murph!

Well, the Packers did indeed win everything up to Super Bowl XXXII and all the prognosticators who set the odds and the point spread assured everyone this would be John Elway’s and the Broncos’ fifth loss in a Super Bowl. Man! Talk about persistence — or masochism.

So, Super Bowl XXXII rolls around and my Dear Brother Carl and I head over to the hotel in La Jolla where the Packers were staying. We waited in the lobby to watch the team walk in on the Saturday before the game. What struck me as the players sauntered in was their lackadaisical attitude, even though they would be playing in the biggest game of the season in about 24 hours. The only Packer not smiling was head coach Mike Holmgren and he looked more than serious, he looked worried.

No matter. Everyone told me the Broncos would be losing their fifth Super Bowl and Hell, I placed those bets and was expecting a spectacular payday come 9 p.m. Sunday evening (local time), give or take a few minutes.

Well, them … fuckin (there I said it! I dropped an F-Bomb!) Broncos won! How could the Packers lose? God, the pain! And the worst of it was, my effin wisenheimer brother Tony placed a bet with me, betting the Broncos would win!

And ever since, that turncoat Broncos fan and that entire Denver Clan have never let me forget, them [expletive deleted] Broncos beat the Packers in the one Super Bowl in which both teams appeared. Never mind that the Packers have won four and the Broncos only two; or that the Packers’ Super Bowl winning percentage is 80% compared to the Broncos’ Super Bowl winning percentage of 33%, there’s always that little detail, that technicality — that fact — the only time the Packers and Broncos met in a Super Bowl the Denver effin’ Broncos won.

I’m actually cursing right now, but that’s beside the point. Maybe not. Some people may be thinking, “Man! Let it go!” or, “Tim, lighten up!”

Trust me, I’m pretty effin’ calm compared to years past, believe you me! But now, the Broncos — and that Colorado Clan — have been Tebowtized and there’s a chance the Packers could be facing the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVI come February 5, 2012.

Tim Tebow, despite everyone saying he couldn’t do it, is a starting quarterback who is leading his team, them Denver Broncos, to one victory after another. They could very well win the AFC Western Division. Tebow, it appears, is a “comeback” quarterback, leading his team to last second victories over much more accomplished opponents.

Next week is the real test for the Broncos. The New England Patriots, who are 10-3 so far this season, head into Mile High … err, some corporate named stadium: Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium — you gotta be shittin’ me! Okay, that’s a whole different complaint. Let’s not get off on another tangent cause this one has already claimed this blog.

But, if the Denver Broncos beat the visiting New England Patriots, I will place a bet that the Denver Broncos will win the AFC Championship and once again hoist the Lamar Hunt Trophy over their heads.

If, of course, they get past the Patriots in the playoffs, and those guys from Houston, the Texans. Yeah! The newest team in the league has won their first division title, the AFC South Division, and are competing with the Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens for that coveted first round bye and home field advantage.

On top of that, our family has a Texas Clan just 40 miles west of Houston and they no doubt think their upstart Texans will be hoisting that Lamar Hunt trophy — in Houston no less — because Texans are just like that: they think they’re bigger and better than everyone else.
 Speaking of which: did you see the looks on the faces of the people in Jerry Jones’s box Sunday Night when the Cowboys lost to the New York Giants on a blocked chip shot field goal? Priceless!

But I say this to both the Colorado Clan and the Texas Clan; it ends when they meet the Packers in Super Bowl XLVI. I’m betting on it — again. The Packers better not lose this time.

The 20th Century Limited

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:01:00 -0700

On Thursday I was watching the Alfred Hitchcock classic, North by Northwest. Cary Grant is the reluctant hero, thwarting international spies and as political irony, set against icons of American culture and heritage: the big cities of New York and Chicago, the farm fields of Indiana and the epitome of Americana: Mount Rushmore.

Ah, the grandeur of American grandiosity. We have more skyscrapers and at the time the film was released, 1959, we had the tallest. And then of course we couldn’t just craft statues out of metal or blocks of granite or even marble; no, we had to carve one giant monument on the side of a mountain. I’m disappointed Hitchcock didn’t weave the Hoover Dam into the story.

So the story is an ad man, Roger O. Thornhill, working on his version of the American dream, creating ads to entice the rest of us to be consumers, he gets sucked into a plot to sneak state secrets out of the country. We don’t know what the secrets are, but that isn’t important. All that matters is Mr. Thornhill is getting chased from New York to Chicago, to Indiana and Mount Rushmore. Besides, if they told you they would have to kill you.
 Mr. Thornhill has monogrammed hankies: R.O.T. Get it? Advertising man equals rot? If you didn’t get it right away Mr. Thornhill explains it on the train.

Which brings into the story Eve Kendall, played by Eva Marie Saint. As it turns out Miss Kendall is no innocent. She’s the mistress of the main evildoer, Philip Vandamm, played by James Mason.

If you haven’t seen this movie from beginning to end, you really must. It’s probably Hitchcock’s best and one of the few that wasn’t shot entirely on an enclosed set. It has a great cast that includes Martin Landau as a great villain and Leo G. Carroll as the Professor. He’s most remembered as Mr. Waverly from the TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

This is what got my attention though: when the plot turns and R.O.T. finds out what’s up with the game and the true nature of Miss Kendall’s involvement in it all, he suggests, with a touch of bitterness, the “Good Guys” need to learn how to lose a few Cold Wars before getting young innocents like Miss Kendall involved in all this international intrigue.

Not losing a beat, Mr. Waverly … err … the Professor, replies, “I’m afraid we’re already losing this one.”

There you go. For those old enough to remember “duck and cover” and the fear of it all coming to an end in one big, bright flash of nuclear destruction, you’ll understand the push back against the exploding arms race of the times. And the fear of Sputnik and what it meant. We may have had more warheads pointed at Moscow than Moscow had pointed at us, but the Rooskies were winning because they won the Space Race.

For those too young to remember or live through that period, that was a big deal and the reason Mr. Waverly … I mean the Professor, told R.O.T. we were losing.

Then just four months into his administration, President John F. Kennedy declares, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.” I gotta wander: did this movie have any influence on Kennedy’s grandiose vision? Just over 42 years ago we achieved that goal, about eight years after Kennedy declared we would.

The nation was gripped in hysteria over the creep of Communism. We had purged Hollywood! We had purged government! And yet we were still screaming about the possibility of a nuclear holocaust and world domination by the Soviet Union — they were out to bury us! Within months of the film’s release, Cuba would fall to Castro and we would have a Soviet satellite parked 90 miles off our Southern Coast!

A couple years earlier, fueld by that fear, we made “In God We Trust” our national motto, inserting it on all our money, in direct contradiction to the spirit of the Constitution as the Founders had envisioned it; a nation free of any national religion and its citizens free to worship as they please, or not to worship at all. Then we inserted those two words into the Pledge of Allegiance, “under God,” just to prove we were different from those atheistic Commies! Superior because we believed in God, Goddammit!

No, I won’t say the Pledge of Allegiance, not with those two words in it. They weren’t there when the Pledge was first written nor when it was rewritten. They were inserted during the height of the Cold War, just to appease the religious kooks and prove, once and for all, we were better than the Soviets.

Ultimately, North By Northwest is a love story. The middle-aged ad man finds a beautiful young blonde half his age, every man’s midlife crisis fantasy and a Hitchcock staple, and they fall in love. He, the reluctant hero, risks all to save her from a most horrible end and in the process saves the U.S. from the spies looking to give aid to our enemies.

In the end, the man and woman return to New York City on the train named the 20th Century Limited. What an appropriate name, considering the era when this film was made. Were there limits to the 20th Century? Yeah. McCarthyism, The Hollywood witch hunts, the nuclear arms race; we were limited by our fears.

And maybe, just a little, the growing popularity of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. You see in the end, just before the credits start to roll, R.O.T. pulls his new bride up into the sleeping car’s bunk just as the train they call the 20th Century Limited enters a tunnel.

If I had an ounce of patience I would have e-mailed the screenwriter and asked him if all the imagery and symbolism was intentional, or just figments of my imaginative and conspiratorial mind. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

The Pack Is Back!

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:01:00 -0700

What a great weekend! The Wisconsin Badgers beat the Michigan State Spartans to win the inaugural Big 10 Championship and a place in the 2012 Rose Bowl, to face the Ducks of Oregon. That was Saturday. On Sunday, the Green Bay Packers beat the New York Giants, cementing their place in the playoffs and keeping their winning streak alive: they are 12-0 for the season and 18 straight wins overall.

This is funny. Last year I didn’t expect the Packers to make it to the Super Bowl, let alone win it. They didn’t even win their division title last year; that went to the Chicago Bears. The Packers earned a Wild Card berth in the playoffs with a 10-6 record. Damn Bears were 11-5 … but time to get over it, the Packers already have a better record.

So, the first team the Packers faced in the 2010 playoffs was the Philadelphia Eagles. That was going to be a tough game, but the Pack had beaten the Eagles in the first game of the season so it seemed reasonable the Pack could march onto Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia and beat the Michael Vick-led Eagles. But you never know with Michael Vick, he’s a great player.
 I have friends, nice, great friends, who will never forgive Vick for the dog fighting. So many animals brutalized, it’s beyond sickening. But, for me, he did his time, lost nearly everything in the process so give him another chance in the NFL.
 Do I want him for a friend? No, but maybe, at some point, there will be an inspirational story of redemption, although after his considerable whining this season, that doesn’t seem forthcoming any time soon.

So, beating the Eagles, on the road, wasn’t the biggest leap of the playoffs. No, every game the Packers would play was on the road, in someone else’s house. Ever watch the pre-game hype shows? There’s always a clip or two of different teams doing their pre-game emotional warm-up and the leader is telling his teammates, “This is OUR house! This is OUR house!”

Every player on every team takes that seriously and to go into someone else’s house and take it away from them for just one day — ONE GAME — especially in the playoffs, well that takes some equally serious chutzpah … and skill and determination. Doesn’t really look good to talk shit if you can’t back it up.

Broadway Joe Namath famously declared his New York Jets would beat Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts to win Super Bowl III — and then they did it! No shit!

Forget all Joe’s records and spindly knees, what he’s most famous for is his chutzpah and then leading his team to victory. I forget how much of an underdog the Jets were: was it two touchdowns or three? Don’t even remember the odds, but if you bet the Jets to win, you won big.

Broadway Joe Namath is definitely Hall of Fame worthy, just on pure confidence alone! He has a losing record as a professional ball player, but still; the Packers won Super Bowls I and II, but Joe Namath and his Jets made the game the biggest single day sporting event in the world.

Sorry about the tangents (not really) but this thought just crossed my mind after watching “highlights” of the 2011 San Diego Chargers who will play the Jacksonville Jaguars tonight on Monday Night Football. Man! I live in San Diego! I feel sorry for my friends who are Chargers fans! Truly, they deserve better than this, but on the other hand, they don’t have to bear the burden of being Colts fans this season.

This is the burning thought: the NFL won’t have another Super Bowl in San Diego until the city/county/state builds another stadium for the San Diego Chargers. The Murph is too old for those bastards and doesn’t have all the luxury amenities the NFL demands these days, so NFL management has decided, “No new stadium, no Super Bowls for you!”

So we get Super Bowls played in Snow Belt locations like Detroit, New Jersey, and this next one in Indianapolis. You gotta love the irony though. The Colts are, so far, winless this season and are now eliminated from the playoffs. We get Super Bowls in places no one goes to on vacation in February, but not in one of the best vacation locations in the Lower 48. NFL management is full of shit.

Not only that, we’ll never see a Super Bowl played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. It has nothing to do with the weather and the fact that Lambeau is not enclosed. No, not at all. It has to do with the ownership. Every other owner, plus league management, hates the Green Bay Packers for one simple reason: the citizens of Green Bay, WI and the surrounding environs own the team. There isn’t this one guy sitting in the owner’s box lording over all his (or her) domain.

So, you don’t have this bullshit of team management threatening to leave if they don’t get a new stadium. Hell, if team management — the citizens — want to improve Green Bay, they just have another stock offering and sell more shares in the Packers!

I forget all the rules regarding Packers shares, but “they” ensured that no one could wrest control away from the citizens and put all control into one or two people. Green Bay will never have a Jerry Jones or Al Davis — rest in peace Al — because the current owners won’t allow it.

When the Packers became the only publicly owned team, the NFL instituted a new rule forbidding other teams from becoming publicly owned teams and the other professional sports leagues followed suit.

Then, whenever a team starts whining and demanding to get a new stadium, claiming the team can’t go on unless they get a new stadium; the league needs new stadiums, some wisenheimer in the news media says, “But what about Lambeau Field?”

Or Soldier Field in Chicago for that matter. Now, Da Bears have private ownership, the Halas Family, but unlike most other league owners, the Halases are Homers. That is, they not only live and breathe the Bears, but the Big City that is their home as well. They understand traditions and for every Bears fan, Soldier Field is sacred ground. As Lambeau is for every Packer fan. So, management for both the Packers and the Bears understand how important their respective stadiums are to their fans — their friends and neighbors.
 Current owner Virginia McCaskey, for those who don’t know, is the daughter of legendary Chicago Bears owner George Halas.

Back to the Packers. They beat the Eagles in Philadelphia, in a close game. I thought Andy Reid was actually going to cry. Maybe he did off camera. Then the Packers had to travel to Atlanta to play the Falcons, turning that game into a blow out. But then the Packers had to travel to Soldier Field to play them GODDAM BEARS in the National Football Conference Championship.

That’s it, no way the Packers, Wild Card team, is going to beat the division champions in the conference championship game at Soldier fucking Field! Home of Da Bears.

But then the Wild Card Packers beat the Division Champion Bears in Soldier fucking Field to earn the title of National Football Conference Champions, hoisting the Halas Trophy — in Soldier Field — over their heads. That had to be the bitterest of pills for the Bears, the Halases and all of Chicagoland.
 We Packer fans were (and are) loving the Schadenfruede of it!

Then it was on to Dallas — ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!?? DALLAS??!!?? — for Super Bowl XLV. That’s Super Bowl 45 for the numerically challenged. But another Super Bowl played in a place covered with snow!

So, the Packers had already exceeded all expectations and were facing a Steelers team that was being compared to the Terry Bradshaw era Steelers that won four Super Bowls in six years. Nah, no way the Packers can win this one! Or could they? Hell, they beat Da Bears in Soldier Field, so why not win it all?

And they did win it all, beating the Pittsburgh Steelers by a score of 31-25. Now the Packers’ winning streak stands at 18, with four more games left in the regular season. If they have to play in all the playoff rounds, four more games. If they have the best record in the NFC, which is looking better each week, they’ll get a bye in the first round of the playoffs.

No team has had an unbeaten season since the Miami Dolphins did it in 1972 when they won it all. But, that was in the era when there were only 14 games in the regular season. Still, a great accomplishment, going 17-0 overall and winning it all.

The New England Patriots made a stab at it in 2007, only to lose in Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants. Isn’t that a bit of irony: the Giants killed the Patriots’ bid for an unbeaten season and the Packers beat the Giants to maintain their pursuit of a perfect season.

Watching Giants quarterback Eli Manning’s face as Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, with 58 seconds left in the game, moved the ball far enough down field so their placekicker, Mason Crosby, could boot in the winning field goal, running out the game clock in the process — priceless.

You think about it, briefly, and figure if they played just about any other team in the NFL and scored 35 points, the New York Giants would win the game! But, to their dismay, the found themselves playing against the best team in the NFL with the league’s best candidate for MVP, the quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and well, the Giants have now lost four in a row.

It’s getting close to game time for the Chargers at the Jaguars and this tome has gone from epic to … umm … excessive. We’ll be watching the Packers every week now, as long as they remain unbeaten. Oh yeah, the Wisconsin Badgers will be in the Rose Bowl January 2nd. We’ll be watching that one too.

Remember the good old days when all the major college bowl games were played on New Years Day? Damn BCS, screwed it up but good and they can’t even get a decent national championship game! Don’t even get me started!

Tune In, Turn On And Get Real

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:01:00 -0700

Medical Marijuana. Why is it still illegal to grow, distribute, own and use marijuana at all?

“But wait Tim, it’s legal in California,” you exclaim!

Yes, California state law makes medical marijuana legal, but as anyone with even a smidgen of Civics education knows, federal law supersedes state law — always.

Just for the record, I’ve been for the legalization of all drugs since smoking that first joint at the age of 13. That’s a few decades. But, I didn’t become firmly convinced about legalization of all drugs until I stopped using all street drugs, including alcohol, over 27 years ago.

The rationale is so basic, it’s baffling to me more people don’t agree. As adults of (relatively) sound mind, we should have the choice of ingesting whatever substances we deem necessary for our betterment and/or enjoyment. If you want to snort that line of cocaine or methamphetamine, by all means, do so. Same with heroin. Just go buy some clean needles and shoot away.

“Why that’s a pretty cavalier attitude Tim!”

Yeah, but really, who am I to tell another adult they cannot do something, even if it may be injurious to their health and wellbeing? And who the Hell is the federal government to take that role?

About 90 years ago we proved prohibition doesn’t work when alcohol was banned in the U.S. The only effects of banning alcohol was to make 90% of the population criminals and give a vehicle to organized criminal enterprises to gain widespread control and influence in society.

The ban on alcohol was reversed in 1932, much to the joy of all, especially the distilleries and breweries around the nation. But, in 1936 the film Reefer Madness was released and the national hysteria surrounding other psychoactive drugs was on.

Marijuana was the focus of the film and it showed young people being lured into a life of addiction and debauchery — and murder!— simply for smoking a joint. It was the cautionary lesson of all morality tales; young people becoming insane from smoking weed. Why, your daughter could wind up having illicit sex while smoking marijuana!

Well, okay, that much is true, but more than likely she’d wind up having illicit sex anyway. Smoking pot just made it all that much more enjoyable. This is a curious note: as I recall, smoking pot tended to dampen my libido although the right circumstances could easily overcome that unfortunate side effect.

One day, while attending classes at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee I attended a noon showing of the film in the Student Union. And while there, in the darkened room I lit up a one hitter of pot. I felt so rebellious!

Many drugs were used in the spiritual rituals of tribal religions not Christian so they were declared to be the work of Satan by Christian religious leaders. That’s what was initially behind the effort to ban drugs in this country. Had Christian religions figured out a way to incorporate drugs into their own rituals and make money from it, all drugs would be legal today.

Cocaine was actually legal until a little over 100 years ago. It was the active ingredient in Coca-Cola. In fact one could buy opiates in medicinal elixirs like Laudanum, but it was all eventually banned.

After prohibition ended, organized crime had to find another cash cow and that turned out to be heroin. If you can recall the scene from the movie The Godfather, the heads of the crime families agreed to sell heroin, but they would keep it in the “colored neighborhoods. They all live like animals anyway.”

And that’s how it was treated for the next 15-20 years: marijuana, heroin, cocaine, and other drugs were primarily things found in the ghetto neighborhoods of the racial minorities. Occasionally some White person would venture uptown and get high … but he or she was probably listening to Black music so they were lost anyway.

The hipsters in the mostly White Beat generation found drugs by way of the be-bop jazz emanating from the Black nightclubs. Some of be-bop’s biggest names were junkies as were some of the biggest names in the Beat movement: Miles Davis, Charlie “Bird” Parker and William S. Burroughs topping those lists.

The masterpiece written by Burroughs, Naked Lunch, is the story of his life as a heroin junkie and Jack Kerouac’s counter culture anthem On the Road celebrates the life style of jazz, alcohol and drugs. Just a few years ago I was astounded to learn Kerouac was extremely popular with college students, 50 years after On the Road was published. My niece had read it and then turned her dad, my brother, on to it.

Then the hippie counter culture came in the 1960’s and drugs were being used all across the social and racial spectrum. White kids celebrated the freedom of smoking and using cannabis products; drugs were beginning to go mainstream. Musicians wrote songs about it, Jimi Hendrix did “Purple Haze” and “Spanish Castle Magic” to name just two. The most famous song was by the Beatles: “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” an homage to LSD.
 Do you celebrate Bicycle Day?

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, LSD, had been legal until 1966 and was widely studied throughout the world. Most famous of these researchers, outside of the man who first created it, Dr. Albert Hoffmann, a Swiss chemist working for the Sandoz laboratories, were Doctors Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary. Both were psychologists working for Harvard University in the 1950’s and did widely celebrated — or denounced — studies of LSD, which was legal at the time.

Both Alpert and Leary were eventually fired, but Leary carried on his “work” spreading the good news of LSD. The hippie culture loved it and him, so much so people thought LSD ought to be illegal too, even though it has no adverse side effects like physical addiction or physical or psychological deterioration. People were just enjoying it too much. That was the problem.
 There were “bad trips” of course, but for the vast majority of users there were no side effects and most users of LSD credit the drug for opening their minds and giving them a new freedom to think for themselves.

So here we are, nearly 50 years after the hippie counter culture burst on to the scene and we have the largest prison population (per capita) of any industrialized nation, second only to China. Well over half those people in our prisons are there because of drug or drug-related crimes.

The drug cartels are shipping in drugs as fast as “we” can use them and in fact, are destroying some of our national forests to grow their “homegrown” marijuana in places like Humboldt and Mendocino Counties, California.

Then there are new drugs I’ve never used, like Exstacy. Apparently it makes you want to dance and have sex. I don’t really need that to want sex, I just do, but that’s beside the point.

All of this plus our European allies looking to decriminalize all drugs, or they already have done so, and we still fight a drug war costing us hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Talk about wasting tax dollars. No one who looks at the so-called “Drug War” objectively says we’re “winning.” We’ve been officially fighting it for 40 years, ever since President Nixon declared a War on Drugs. About ten years later President Reagan appointed the nation’s first “Drug Czar.”

To what end? Put more people in prison? It’s time to end the insanity and we can start by legalizing cannabis. In a recent poll conducted by CBS, 77% of Americans think marijuana should be legal. That’s across all political and social strata. A start has been made in California where we can find quasi-legal growers and distributors in business selling medicinal marijuana.

It can be regulated and have taxes collected, as we do for alcohol and tobacco. People who actually need it for medicinal purposes can have it and those who use it purely for recreational purposes, let them have the same freedom and responsibilities as those afforded the use of alcohol. Operating a motor vehicle while under the influence should be treated the same way we treat people busted for driving while intoxicated on alcohol.

The big push against legalization comes down to two reasons: the religious demonization and the drug war industry that gets all those tax dollars. Billions of dollars in cash and property are confiscated every year and that money doesn’t go to victims, it goes into the coffers of the various state, local and federal governments.

Cannabis has no real side effects like opiates and cocaine, although, just from an anecdotal note, i.e., personal experience, one can become psychologically hooked on marijuana and hashish.

This not so short rant is getting epic in nature, so we’ll stop, but I’ll say this: our various governments could be collecting billions in tax revenues regulating the cultivation and sale of cannabis products, including clothing and rope. Instead, we are spending billions on citizens who have been incarcerated for dealing and using marijuana not to mention the billions spent trying to eradicate the industry. We could be using a portion of those tax dollars to fund more drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs. There are plenty of well researched studies that support this idea.

Instead, we keep losing ground in this so-called “War on Drugs” and keep adding to our prison population! It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense!

It’s time to legalize cannabis.

Did You Cyber?

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:01:00 -0700

It came and went, Cyber Monday. We had Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday — time out for football on Sunday — then Cyber Monday. It’s all got something to do with Christmas shopping. Unless you have some kind of digital fetish and think “Cyber” means something entirely different.

Back about 10-14 years ago there was this activity people did using instant messaging programs like AOL Instant Message (AIM) ICQ and Yahoo Messenger. You would hook up with some like-minded individual of the gender you liked having sex with and then trade sexual commentary back and forth in real time.

You’d meet these individuals on the social networking sites of the day and eventually one of the participants would ask, “Do you cyber?”
 “What’s that?”
 Then the other explained it in great detail and being the curious type I … I mean other people … started accounts on Yahoo Messenger and checked it out. And that lasted until “they” started asking for money.

So, Cyber Monday could, in the minds of some, mean getting online with your favorite virtual partner and having consensual self-gratification together, complete with pictures that may or may not be the actual person with whom you are digitally cobobulating.
 Yeah, I just made up that word!

In this day and age, who does that any more? Now people can use Skype, the internet digital video telephone program that lets you see the person you are Skyping with and one would assume participants could be in various stages of undress while doing it.

People are fond of taking photos of themselves in front of mirrors, using their iPhones and Blackberries, then texting them to their friends. The downside of doing that is, well, eventually all the rest of us finally get to see them on the Internets.

There are more than a few stars who have found their intimate portraits, taken specifically for the ones they love, distributed far and wide for the entire Internet population to enjoy. Scarlett Johansson and Vanessa Hudgins come to mind. Hell, I didn’t even know who Vanessa Hudgens was until the controversy over her self-taken nude photos hit the Internets. Disney starlets — ya gotta love’em!

Then there was that Disney girl, Anne Hathaway! Damn girl! She didn’t go the informal nude iPhone pics route, she made a movie in which she got totally nude for her many fans! Havoc, if you haven’t seen it. Rent it on Blu-Ray today!
 Just read this online: the former Disney princess is engaged again. And I thought I had a shot.

Remember back in the good old days when Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee had their home sex tapes pilfered and distributed? For over a decade now Anderson has owned the rights to it and makes money off the tapes and since then many celebrities have had sex tapes mysteriously appear on the market. Having seen clips of a few, I wouldn’t pay to own any of the DVD’s.

We’re getting a little far afield here so back to Cyber Monday, the answer to pushing and shoving through the malls of America. It’s the official start of the online shopping most people do these fays. Why stand in line at Macy’s register when you can order the item directly from the warehouse and have it shipped, wrapped with a nice gift card, to the recipient of your token of love.

A few years ago I worked for a catalogue company that did nearly all of its business online. The rest of it was by phone. Their digital process was so efficient their need for customer service was cut by nearly 80%.

What also helped was getting the orders correct so that the purchases made it to their destinations on time and in perfect condition. Because of those factors the company had little need for a large number of people answering their phones.

They laid off nearly 80% of their work force.

Getting the shopping done online is easy and efficient. Since Amazon opened its virtual doors every retailer in America has followed suit and opened their business up online as well. We can order groceries online and have them delivered!

The one thing Internet shopping does though is it separates us from each other. We don’t interact with these strangers in stores, being patient and tolerant as we wait for those in front of us to check out. We don’t get to ask questions of a helpful sales associate nor can we ogle each other as we strut in our holiday finery. One of the reasons I like going to the University Towne Center and Fashion Valley malls during the Christmas season is to watch the people. You can’t get that online

A few days ago I wrote about us becoming a nation of consumers instead of producers. The more convenient it is to shop, the more we consume and the people who purchase the most online are those who work in offices in front of computers all day. The people who sit in offices all day aren’t producing products, they’re usually providing a service or pushing paper from one digital pile to another. And their wages usually suck. I know because I’ve had plenty of those new tech, low wage positions.

To be honest, I like purchasing stuff online. It’s nice to be able to purchase a Zappa album and have it download directly to my iTunes. On the other hand, I miss browsing through my local used record or CD store looking for beloved chestnuts from days gone by, like Joe’s Garage by FZ. The Central Scrutinizer!

Real live shopping will never go away completely, most of us are still social animals and like the interaction with our fellow humans. We crave that human touch. Reaching out and touching someone digitally is fine, but touching them, seeing them in person feels so much better. Always. Ask any spouse who Skypes with a loved one serving in Afghanistan.

According to the news, retailers did real well since Black Friday, which now starts late Thanksgiving night, and Cyber Monday was much better this year than last. Good news for President Obama — and the rest of us — if the economy is coming back. But I will always prefer the warmth of a live body to that of a cold image on a computer monitor.

On the other hand, some things can only be had through online providers. Just got an e-mail from Dead.net about the latest releases from the vaults. You can never have too many recordings by the Grateful Dead! None of them are available in stores. Just try finding any Dick’s Picks in your local retailer, or Grateful Dead t-shirts and hoodies. You have to shop the Dead’s online site.

One more little item to note about shopping online: some impatient, greedy asshole isn’t going to pepper spray you just to get first dibs on the Xbox or shoot you in an effort to steal your purchases. Someone could of course steal your personal info and that would suck, but most sites are extremely secure these days.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to view all the tie-dyes and download a few musical freebies. Enjoy the holiday season, whether you shop or not. The reason for the season is to strengthen those connections with our friends and loved ones. Whether we do it with a gift, a card or just a smile, let’em know you still love’em.

The Black Friday Solution

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:01:00 -0700

Black Friday … good grief!

My Black Friday story: the only place of business I went to was CLOSED on Black Friday! Are you shitting me? Who closes their doors on the biggest, most storied day of sales? Go figure. To be fair, it’s not a traditional retail business, not like a Macy’s or Target, but still.

So, the big story from Black Friday was on Yahoo News by 9 a.m. This just blows my mind. Some woman here in California, a well-to-do neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley no less, was arrested for pepper-spraying other shoppers! You gotta be shittin’ me! Really! The other shoppers weren’t attacking the woman, weren’t being any more rude than your average Black Friday shopper. No, the woman just wanted to get them out of her way so she could get whatever do-dad she was trying to purchase.

Oops. I take it back. The woman wasn’t arrested. She got away with it. Basically, she sprayed about 20 people milling around waiting to get an XBox at a Wal-Mart — of course. Store management is assisting the police to find out who the woman is, which includes looking at surveillance video and checking sales receipts for the people who bought XBoxes.

Also in California, the Bay Area, would-be thieves outside another Wal-Mart tried to rob a family of their purchases, at about 3 a.m., and when the family refused a scuffle broke out. That’s when one of the robbers pulled out a gun and shot the man. One of the attackers was caught by the other family members and handed over to police — who in turn handed him over to medical personnel so he could get his injuries tended to after being held by the angry and vengeful family.

Looks like California is Kook Central, but if you scan the news and Google Black Friday violence, you’ll see acts of violence, or just blind greed that causes serious injuries, from coast-to-coast. But this is interesting: have you ever wondered why, every year, the most heinous acts of greed and selfishness on Black Friday seem to occur at Wal-Mart?

There was this one video from New Jersey that showed these frenzied and angry shoppers pushing and grabbing, elbowing each other to get items that had been carefully placed in their displays by the store employees, just hours earlier. Maybe minutes earlier. In the video, one guy reached over a woman’s back and yanked a box out of her hands. In the process he banged her head with his elbow. What do you want to bet the guy gloated over his Black Friday behavior?

What is it about Wal-Mart that causes people to go insane with their greed?

Christmas … the greediest, most materialistic holiday on the calendar. The Christians like to put up their billboards reminding us to “remember the reason for the season” or “Keep the Christ in Christmas.” Usually that makes me bristle because the holiday pre-dates Christianity by hundreds, maybe thousands, of years, but contrast that message to the violent greed displayed by people Christmas shopping …

Greed is the real national religion in America. This whole notion of the “free market” is predicated on greed and we’re brought up to worship at the altar of the Almighty Dollar. Just watch the commercials for Black Friday and Christmas shopping in general. We are sent two messages: “I want __” and “I wanna get the most deals before everyone else!”

In the interest of honesty, I’m no different. I want stuff. A new car, preferably a new Cadillac (what can I say, I’m old school), a new Macintosh, make that two: a tower and a Macbook Air. Maybe an iPad II as a gift for … someone special! There’s always been this dream to have the biggest estate in La Jolla, CA, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Well meaning people will say, “It’s just stuff!” True, but it begs the question: will you just hand over your stuff to me and forget about it? I’ll never say “it’s just stuff” because honestly, it’s my stuff. What can I say, I’m the guy the retailers are marketing for with their Black Friday commercials. Well not exactly, they’re after the people with a lot of room on their credit cards for thousands of dollars in purchases.

Despite my own greed, the mobs crowding into Wal-Marts and malls across the country offends me. It’s laughable, but the reason for the laughter is because we can’t believe the insanity of it. Just watch the videos, they’re on Youtube. Would you stand in line for hours on Thanksgiving waiting for a store to open? Thankfully, the majority of Americans don’t, but enough do that it becomes a national obsession. And thankfully, my friends are equally appalled by the carnage of Black Friday.

Then the news networks report the early estimations of money spent: is it up from last year? Will retailers have to add extra sales later in the shopping season? Will it help pull America out of this recession? Our entire system, our society, is based on consumption. It’s the American Way and Christmas shopping — Black Friday weekend in particular — is the apex of our social system.

It’s not just Black Friday either. It’s the entire Christmas shopping season. The crowds, the short tempers, the frustrations and disappointments; this is how we define ourselves as a nation. Get more of everything at any cost to dignity and common sense.

What’s the Occupy Wall Street movement all about? The greed of Wall Street and the international banking system, the result being the widening of the income disparity gap.

What keeps the system in place, more than any amount of money and lobbyists to pass it around, is the fantasy that any of us can become a part of the One Percent. We don’t want to change our “Free Market” system! It might interfere with our plans to become a part of the Elite.

Forty years ago we didn’t much worry about it because so many of us had good-paying industrial jobs. We made things and shipped them around the world, confident that “Made in America” meant this was the best of whatever it is you want to purchase.

Then the 1980’s hit and we slowly started turning into a nation of consumers. American companies began moving their production facilities, first to Mexico and then to Asia, any place where they could take advantage of slave labor — some call it low wages — that was enforced by the governments of the host nations. Unions are actively and violently opposed in these countries. It would raise the standard of living in those nations, but the leaders are paid to keep it cheap.

As a result, we’re no longer a producing nation, we’re a nation of consumers. Yeah, most of us work, but the workers continue to lose ground financially. But do we really want to change the system? Not really, not now. Any hint of Socialism is bad and there’s still that possibility I’ll become a member of the One Percent.

And so our social system rests upon Christmas shopping and Black Friday Weekend. Seriously, if businesses don’t do well, people could really lose their jobs, adding to the 50 million people already out of work. Retailers do 25% of their yearly business in this month of shopping so they promote the Hell out of it and it becomes the defining event of the consumer nation.

And Wal-Mart is the biggest example of that national zeitgeist. Constantly in court for lawsuits concerning workers rights, they are best known for driving small business out of business and providing their employees with as few benefits and salary as they can get away with. And they’re known for their low prices.

So, when Black Friday rolls around, Wal-Mart cuts their already low prices on those items so many people appear ready to die for and mayhem ensues. And none of it would be possible without our complicity because for us, as a society and as individuals, it’s all about the Benjamins.

Happy Thanksgiving!

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:01:00 -0700

What to be thankful for on Thanksgiving: Family and friends. Short and simple. But I want to remember in particular our two siblings who are no longer with us:
 Our older brother Carl. Navy veteran and veteran wisenheimer and practical joker. He introduced me to Las Vegas — insider style — many moons ago. We had some great times!
 And our beautiful sister Elaine. Funnier than all the rest of us put together, she had the greatest attitude, especially when she was in constant pain and knew her time was near. I sure miss her everyday.

I’m blessed that many of my family members are Frank Zappa fans! We can text each other with Zappa lyrics and spend all day “singing” Zappa via text message! How cool is that! And we don’t quote the easy songs. Hell no! We go for the obscure, “you need to be a Zappaphile to know this one” songs!

Love the family! Cheryl (Cecil), Mary Lou (MLou), (Little) Ricky, Tony (Wan Kenobi) and Kenny (Kenny Bo Benny) and all their families. Let’s see if I get them all: Lloyd, Judy and Gordon; Christopher, Nancy, Anthony, Sarah, Daniel, Breanna, Kelsey, Andrew Emyli, and Sydney Bean — and by way of Elaine and Gordon: Channing, Sabrina and Brandon. Maybe next year we can all conspire to be in one place for Thanksgiving!
 A special shout out: Get well soon, Lloyd! I got something for you!

My sister Elaine and I often quoted Grateful Dead songs back and forth via the text message! Often whatever songs had popped in our heads, rambling in that Grateful Dead sort of vibe, all day long. What I got going in my head lately is “Scarlett Begonias” from Dick’s Picks #6. Awesome recording.

And then there are all my friends! In a bit I’ll be off to spend Thanksgiving with a large gathering of them — Thanksgiving dinner to die for! I’d mention a few, but then I’d miss a bunch and feel guilty for days. Ah, Hell: Dan, John, Eric, Claudia, Jim, Terri, Julie, Suzanne, Bill — and Bill — John, John and John (hope I got’em all), Dave and Dave, Mike ... and Mike and Mike and ... I can’t forget Mike, Lisa-Lisa and Brian, Diana, Heather, Phil, Tony, Tom, Tom, Pam Jeffrey (can’t believe I forgot his wife’s name!), Steve, Mark, one more Brian, Grant and Jess, Duffy, Gayle and Larry and so many more.

Couldn’t imagine life getting any better ... oh wait: The Green Bay Packers are beating the Detroit Lions like an old, dusty rug! Oh no! It just got better! The Pack is officially 11-0!

Sweet!

From Green Bay to San Diego Bay

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:01:00 -0700

The Green Bay Packers are 10-0! Believe it!

Okay, Sunday’s game wasn’t a Hall of Fame performance, but it was a win. Championship teams win games when winning looks, at best, iffy. Well, Aaron Rodgers had another Hall of Fame performance. But let’s be honest, as great as Rodgers is, he needs receivers to match his talent and Aaron Rodgers has a stellar receiving corps.

Jordy Nelson is coming up big in that list of receivers, judging from this season and last, but Rodgers still has Gregg Jennings and the great Donald Driver. Not to mention, all those tight ends and running backs.

A win is a win, no matter how ugly and the ugly ones count just as much as the sweet ones. Hell, I’m one of the ugly ones, but some people think I’m pretty sweet too! I hope.

As is often the case in the National Football League, it is often one of the least likely opponents that topples an undefeated favorite and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came pretty damn close to doing that Sunday. The Bucs are only 4-6 this season, not the worst in the league, but definitely not one of the elite teams. Not this season anyway, but next year they could be true contenders.

This Thursday, on a short week, the Pack plays division rivals — their most dangerous division rivals — the Detroit Lions in Detroit. Well, not actually in Detroit, but a suburb. The Lions started the season on an undefeated tear, but took a couple on the chin. Still, they are for real and the Packers need to play better Thursday than they did Sunday, otherwise the undefeated season ends.

The other team the Packers need to play at the top of their game is the San Francisco 49er’s. From the start of the season I thought the 49er’s were the best team, next to the Packers.

There are six more games this season, ergo, six opportunities for some enterprising and well-prepared team to end the undefeated season and that’s not even counting the playoffs.

But, I didn’t watch the Packer game Sunday. Didn’t even watch the Chargers game. Hell, that was an awesome game — if you’re a Bears fan! Of all the teams the Chargers need to beat, from a Packer fan’s point of view, the Bears are at the top of that list. But they didn’t, losing by 11 points to Da Bears. What the Hell has happened to the Chargers this season?

Fuck … glad I wasn’t in front of a TV for that one. No, my buddy, Captain John Smith, Terror of the High Seas invited me to go sailing with him around San Diego Bay, mainly to watch the America’s Cup World Series. Okay, first off, what I know about the America’s Cup … err … races … you could put in one of Barbie’s teacups.
 Does Mattel make teacups for Barbies? I know even less about Barbie dolls than I do about the America’s Cup.
 Just checking their Barbie website. A Barbie has to have all the right accessories.
 Okay, just got distracted by Mattel’s Hotwheels. That was my last great toy as a child. Just a holiday programming note: I like Hotwheels!

So, there we were, Captain John and I, sailing up, down and around San Diego Bay, getting up to nearly six knots per hour! Apparently that’s pretty good time for a 33-foot Beneteau with only the main sail unfurled. We didn’t put out the jib, that’s the one sail in front that’s like the jet burner in the Batmobile. Captain John thought we could possibly get another two to three knots if we let the jib fly!

No jibs were flying for us Sunday as we wangled our way around San Diego Bay. In fact, as I recall, there was only one spectator boat sailing with the jib and they were flying over the water. We wanted the best spot to watch the competitors racing up, down and across the course. Some New Zealanders bumped our boat with theirs as they pulled along side to tell us where the boundaries were for spectators. They were a jovial pair of chaps.

The New Zealand team won the last America’s Cup so they provided many of the race “officials” and safety patrols, but the Harbor Police, Coast Guard and Navy had their patrol craft cruising in and out of the constantly moving Clusterfuck of boats. Twice the Navy Patrol chased us out of their secure areas.

And because the New Zealanders won the previous America’s Cup World Series, they got to choose the type of boat used in this current AC World Series. Which is why everyone is racing catamarans.

To be honest, I have no clue who won the event. We were just watching, hoping to see one of those catamarans tip over during some wicked heel.

“What’s a heel,” you ask? That’s when the boat is tilted to one side, sometimes to the verge of tipping over. We did it often in that Beneteau. There are these little windows in the cabin and during a few of the more extreme heels, those windows were nearly under water.

So, back to the America’s Cup. There are nine teams and ten boats in the race. Yep, Americans are a different breed and billionaire software tycoon Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle Software, has two boats in the series. But that’s okay, they’re representing the United States.

Both of the Oracle boats did well Sunday, the Coutts boat, named for skipper Russell Coutts, won the speed trials and the other, Spithill, named for skipper James Spithill, won the fleet race.

Ellison was at the races Sunday. His big honkin’ yacht was parked right in the middle of the Bay. So we cruised by twice to take a look at it. Once the racing was over, we could sail up and down the Bay at our leisure, but that was after 3 p.m., so we didn’t have much leisure time left. It was nice and peaceful though, only the sound of the water hitting the hull of the Beneteau.

We cruised past Seaport Village and my favorite restaurant, the Pier, the Navy Pier and the U.S.S. Midway Museum, the harbor with Anthony’s Fish Grotto, all the way back up to Harbor Island where the boat we were sailing is berthed. In all, it was about five hours of sailing, one of the nicer Sundays I’ve had in a while. Thank you Captain John! Let’s do it again! .

The Funniest Reality Show

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 06:01:00 -0700

“I’ve got all this stuff twirling around in my head.”

Probably the most damaging — and humorous — statement from former Republican frontrunner, Herman Cain. He got one of those “gotcha” questions from the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, my hometown paper. The question: “Do you agree with President Obama’s policy on Libya?”

Cain paused, shifting in his seat, as things got uncomfortable. He moved his bottle of water a few inches on the table as a cloud of fear and doubt crossed over his face. He glanced to the ceiling, as if there might be a plausible answer taped up there somewhere.

Then, in real Herman Cain fashion, he began making it up as he went along with his reply. “I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reasons. Umm. No that’s a different one.”

That’s when all that stuff was twirling in his head. “It was a pause, that’s all it was! Good grief!”

The Republican field is, for comedians, the gift that keeps on giving. Saturday Night Live, known for it’s great parodies of political figures, doesn’t even have to write its material this election cycle. They just need to use the transcripts from the various debates, interviews and other gaffe-filled moments on the campaign trail.

Michele Bachmann; even her former campaign manager, Ed Rollins, thinks she’s an idiot. And from the looks of the polls, so do Republican voters. She hasn’t had double-digit popularity since she won the Iowa Straw Poll in August. That’s when I learned how someone actually earns that title: they pay for it.

To vote in the Iowa Straw Poll you have to buy a ballot for $35. What she did was buy well over 6,000 ballots and give them away to people who promised to vote for Bachmann as she was feeding them barbecue and treating them to free concerts featuring big name country acts. And she had chairs in her tent so people could sit down.

But then she started talking … and talking and talking, mostly about repealing the Affordable Health Care Act and making sure Barack Obama is a one-term president and if elected she would build a double fence along the border with Mexico because dammit! Only one just wouldn’t do!

And then she said a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer caused mental retardation. Oops.

This is the woman who compared going to Iraq during the heat of the insurrection to going to the huge Mall of America in the Twin Cities; the woman who claims there is no scientific evidence that proves carbon dioxide is harmful; that Melissa Etheridge got cancer because she’s a lesbian and that the founders of this nation worked tirelessly to end slavery — despite the fact that nearly half the founders owned slaves and fought vigorously to keep anti-slavery language out of the Constitution when it was first written. And the list goes on.
 I was reading things about Bachmann on the Internets and found a site that is chockfull of Bachmann and Palin supporters. These people really, truly believe Michele Bachmann is the answer to America’s ills.

When Texas Governor Rick Perry got into the race, Republicans far and wide rejoiced! A Tea Party guy who wasn’t Mitt Romney or Michele Bachmann. He had all the great sound bites and he threatened to have Texas secede from the Union! Hell, he packs a gun when he jogs and he shot a coyote that might have threatened his Pomeranian! And then there was that prayer party he held in Houston right before he announced his candidacy. Had I been a Teabagger at the time I would have had a boner too!

And then Rick Perry started to speak in paragraphs … or at least he tried. His first debate was a disaster, but people thought he would get better, or at least prepare for debates. But his performances in the second and third debates were worse than the first. He couldn’t articulate on Romney’s flip-flopping and then he couldn’t name the three agencies he would get rid of if he were elected president.
 You know, I’m giving Perry a pass on that one. How many times have I forgotten something that is usually so obvious? Too many to count.
 But then you gotta wonder: if the Department of Energy were abolished who would oversee the nuclear industry?

Newt Gingrich is the latest “I’m not Mitt,” candidate. He’s jumped in the polls, but coming to light as of Wednesday: he worked for the mortgage giant Freddie Mac for eight years as a “consultant,” i.e. lobbyist.

At first he said Freddie Mac hired him as a historian, and then a consultant for strategic advice. But, the management of Freddie Mac said he was hired to help lobby Congressional Republicans to favor the mortgage giant — to the tune of nearly two million dollars. And this is the guy who has been bashing President Obama for taking campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

This man has no shame. And he flip-flops as much as any candidate, including his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. He did an interview on Meet the Press lambasting the fringes of the Left and Right, especially Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. The Tea Party reacted immediately and within 48 hours Newt was apologizing and calling Ryan’s budget, which called for the end to Medicare, courageous.

Speaking of Mitt Romney, who can forget him telling people there are a lot of reasons not to vote for him? Then he starts giving us reasons not to vote for him — and this is after he’s proven to be more of a flip-flopper than John McCain!
 Let the foreclosure crisis play itself out so investors can buy all those foreclosed properties and have the former homeowners return to being renters! Yeah! Make it a windfall for the One Percent!
 We can’t forget “Corporations are people too!”
 Oh yeah, he told unemployed Florida residents, “I’m unemployed too!”
 And of course: “Anderson! Anderson! Rick isn’t playing fair!’

Mitt isn’t liked by the Republican faithful, never gets more than 25% of the popular support in the polls, but he could, by default, wind up with the nomination. Right now he is even with Gingrich and Cain in the polls, but there aren’t many people who think either of them have any staying power. Gingrich is too insincere and Cain is so ill prepared for holding any office, especially the presidency, neither could be seriously considered for the nomination once the actual voting begins.

There are a couple of candidates in the race who could be serious challengers to president Obama, former governors Buddy Roemer and Jon Huntsman, but they are so unpopular with Republican primary voters they aren’t even considered serious challengers for the Republican nomination. For primary voters, Huntsman and Roemer are far too moderate. They’re almost liberals!

One thing each that I like about Roemer and Huntsman: Buddy Roemer supports the Occupy Wall Street Movement and Huntsman, the son of a billionaire, dropped out of high school to be a rock band keyboardist. That’s probably not a good reason to vote for the former governor of Utah, but it makes him cooler than the other candidates.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Hell, I watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report every night to see it, besides my daily doses of the news networks. Remember how we all were shocked and then laughed when Sarah Palin was picked to be John McCain’s running mate? Well, this is the same thing — times eight.

We’re going to need more popcorn.

The Last Straw

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:01:00 -0700

Life is a crapshoot. Often enough it’s just crap. If it wasn’t for the kindness of friends and family there’s no telling where I would be at this moment. Nothing can prepare you for many of the low points in life and when disappointment comes at you, one heartbreaking reality after another, it’s hard to continually, daily, hourly, fend off the feelings of hopelessness and self pity.

No one likes self-pity and it’s a great device for all kinds of humor. We love to mock each other when we get into our little “pity parties,” and usually it’s a good-natured reminder it ain’t nearly as bad as we make it seem, whatever “it” is.

But something that affects the entirety of your life for days and weeks and months at a time can transcend the average moments of doubt and self-pity. We have these mantras we can recite, like “I’m powerless over people, places and things” and “I’m right where I’m supposed to be” and the Serenity Prayer, but sometimes they just aren’t enough. In fact, to have any of that suggested feels like an insult.

So, instead of talking to friends who themselves are tired of hearing about our troubles and are most likely to recite some bromide that, in less troubling times is comforting or gives us a kick in the ass, we retreat and isolate.

There’s a lot to be said for isolating. You can retreat into your own little world, a fantasy even, and script every scene to fit your mood. You can tell people off, have arguments with your friends that pointedly prove you are the victim; you can have arguments with government bureaucracies that, once again, prove you’re the victim. You can look at pictures and videos of hot, nude women and make them your willing and enthusiastic sexual playthings. And you can kill the people who really, truly have hurt you. All without leaving the comfort of your easy chair.

Ever see someone carrying on conversations with themselves? One day while traveling through Pacific Beach on Garnet, there was a White man with long, unkempt hair and slight beard. He actually could have cleaned up and been a chick magnet.

Obviously homeless, the man was ferociously guarding a shopping cart filled with all his belongings. But he was also, it seemed, screaming at two Black men in an SUV. This was all taking place at one of the gas station/convenience stores that dot Garnet Avenue. The two men with the SUV looked befuddled, the other guy enraged. So, I stopped to listen.

The White man guarding his shopping cart was yelling obscenities at someone, but from his words, which escape me at the moment, it was evident the two men with the SUV were not the target. I noticed that when the yelling man was staring in the direction of the SUV guys, he wasn’t actually focused on them, instead looking off into the distance. And he would walk back and forth on the sidewalk, turning around to yell in the direction.

At some point the SUV guys figured out they were really not part of this man’s conversation and went about their business. After they left, the yelling man continued railing at his adversaries, as imaginary as they must have been for years. I mentioned the race of these three people because at first I thought it might be a race-related incident. Of course it wasn’t so once again there was a lesson that there is more to what meets the eye.

Here’s the creepy part: I understood exactly where the yelling man was in life. I could relate. Instead of isolating in a room with a computer to vent his frustration and fear, he was living out on the street, his schizophrenia on display for all the passersby.

Years ago while waiting for a bus on a Downtown street corner, a woman I had known from a few years previously, walked by talking to herself. She looked like she had been living on the street, not the bright-eyed woman I had been hanging out with for a few months. I tried to make contact but she walked by without a glance. She was too deep in her own world to notice anyone or anything in this world.

It is sad and it isn’t just the vagaries and disappointments of life affecting these two people. Obviously the yelling man and my friend suffer from deeper mental illness that when left untreated leaves them helpless in this world and vulnerable to the horrors of their own minds. But really, from talking to my friend, the system did her no favors; the system in fact pushes those of us on the edge over the edge often enough.

People like this are often punished for their troubles, with disability requirements that can be daunting, like having to reconfirm diagnosis and reapply, right down to the amount of compensation which barely allows one to live in squalor. There’s such a stigma attached to mental illness we won’t even allow these people to live comfortably. And of course as individuals we want little to do with these people. Hell, we don’t even want to take care of the elderly: there are politicians who want to end Social Security and Medicare!

The system fails these people because some of us who pay for it don’t believe we should be paying to support the ill in our society at all, which is the height of arrogance and selfishness. We only give those on disability enough to subsist on, just enough to keep them struggling from one check to the next, reminding them that they are just another drag on society, if we decide they qualify for assistance.

After a while all this punishment takes its toll and the punished snap. They go off the deep end and start walking up and down the streets talking and yelling to people who aren’t there. And maybe they act out in ways that cause harm to themselves and others. Then we notice — and wonder, “What went wrong?”

All of that is understandable to me. Something happens and becomes the last straw. Although we may be powerless over people, places or things, for some of us our lives are, at times, dependent upon other people, places or things and when they get it wrong, or one person in that chain of people, places and things drags their feet on something that has a heavy, debilitating impact on our lives, what else can you do? Recite some bromide you might have heard at church or in a Twelve Step Program meeting?

No. I want to scream, “FUCK YOU!” And then start punching and breaking things, going to wherever the problem rests and repeating said procedure. And you know, from this vantage point, getting arrested and going to jail seems worth the effort.

But then there’s that other little part of the brain that believes such behavior is unacceptable and counter-productive, that it will lead to even more problems. So, instead, we just sit in silence, isolating from everything and everyone around us.

At some point we just can’t take it anymore. Even George Clooney said he contemplated suicide just a few years ago. For entirely different reasons, but I understand his misery. So I’ll recite one of those bromides, give it a couple more days and see what happens.

To Our Veterans

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:01:00 -0700

Today is Veterans Day, November 11, 2011 — 11-11-11. They say a lucky day. I don’t know about that, but I’m going to Applebee’s for a free dinner. Thank you Applebee’s! For all the vets in the world, Semper Fi, even if you weren’t in the Marine Corps. Hell, even if you were a sailor.

Yesterday was the 236th birthday of the United States Marine Corps! Semper Fidelis!

Most people don’t know, let alone care, but for everyone who has worn the uniform, this is the most important holiday of the year. There are Marine Corps Balls taking place all over the world tonight — there’s probably one in your town.

The United States Marine Corps was created by an act of the Continental Congress, November 10, 1775, so the Marine Corps predates the United States by … (I’m counting, using all my toes) … about eight months, but who’s counting?

Marines have fought storied battles throughout history and continue fighting those battles, now in Afghanistan. Three battles that really standout as testaments to the Corps occurred in the 20th Century.

On June 1, 1918, the Marines entered the Battle of Belleau Wood, France, against vastly superior German forces that used mustard gas on several occasions. In the next 25 days over 1,200 Marines were killed and thousands more injured. But, they won the battle and signaled, “Woods now U.S. Marine Corps entirely.”

It was during this battle the Germans gave the Marines a nickname that has stuck ever since: “Teufelshunden” — “Devil Dogs,” because of their ferocious tenacity. Often the battle for the Wood was fought with bayonets and fists and to this day, every Marine must qualify with the rifle and take courses in unarmed fighting just to insure we can win at all costs.

During this battle the French had retreated and when a French commander told a Marine Company Commander to retreat as well, he replied, “Retreat? Hell, we just got here!”

It was after Belleau Wood when General Pershing said, “The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle.” The French even renamed the Wood, “Bois de la Brigade de Marine,” or “Wood of the Marine Brigade.”

In February 1945, after skipping around the Pacific Ocean fighting the Imperial Army of Japan for three years, the Marines found themselves on Japanese soil: the island of Iwo Jima. The battle lasted five weeks. Over 6,000 Marines died and nearly 20,000 were wounded.

The iconic moment from the battle occurred on the fifth day when five Marines and one Navy Corpsman raised an American flag atop Mount Suribachi, the highest point on the island. When a commander on a Naval ship said the first flag on Suribachi was too small, a second flag was ordered so the Marines and Sailor fought their way to the top and raised it. Photographer Joe Rosenthal happened to be in the right place at the right time and took the photo that now symbolizes the battle and the Marine Corps. It was later reproduced as the Marine Corps Monument in Washington, D.C. It stands as the bloodiest, most costly battle the United States Marine Corps has ever fought.

On the monument in Washington is the somber quote: “Uncommon valor was a common virtue.” It was first said by Admiral Chester Nimitz after the island was secured. “By their victory, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions and other units of the Fifth Amphibious Corps have made an accounting to their country which only history will be able to value fully. Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

Towards the end of World War II First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt made this comment: “The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!”

The Korean War gave the Corps the greatest Marine ever, one Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller. The most decorated Marine in history, he had four Navy Crosses awarded as well as a Bronze Star, for distinguished service in Haiti, Nicaragua, China and World War II.

In November 1950 U.N. Forces had fought their way into North Korea and were about to capture the entire country. But just like Army Intelligence said they wouldn’t, the Chinese entered the war. They eventually forced U.N. forces out of North Korea and tried to annihilate the forces at the Chosin Reservoir in the process, before the troops could evacuate.

It was during this battle for the “Frozen Chosin” when Puller cemented his legend in Marine Corps history when he uttered the words, “We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies things.”

Chesty led his men, with their dead and wounded and working equipment, out of the trap set by the Chinese, to the port of Hugnam where all the U.N. forces were evacuated. It was for his actions during the Battle of Chosin that Chesty was awarded his fifth Navy Cross.

Back in the day every recruit had to learn all this history and then some, before getting out of First Phase. Woe be to the private that didn’t know who Chesty Puller was.

After Korea there was the Vietnam War. Marines served all over that country, most notably in Khe Sanh, Hue and Da Nang. Marines were the first combat troops deployed to Vietnam in 1965, and the last Americans out of Vietnam on April 30, 1975 when the colors over the U.S. Embassy in Saigon were lowered for the last time.

In 1982 President Reagan ordered the Marines to Beirut, Lebanon as part of a peacekeeping mission. On October 23, 1983 a suicide bomber with a truck bomb blew up the Marine barracks at the Beirut airport, killing 240 Marines. A few months later all American forces were pulled from Lebanon. Ask any Marine today, of any age, active, retired or otherwise: we still wanna go get us some payback.

Then there was Panama and Grenada. Of the latter, Army General John W. Vessey, Jr. famously asked, “We have two companies of Marines running rampant all over the northern half of this island, and three Army regiments pinned down in the southwestern corner, doing nothing. What the hell is going on?”

Then came the first Gulf War after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait. President George H.W. Bush assembled a multinational force to push the Iraqis out of Kuwait. One group of Marines was used as a decoy landing force and another opened up the southern border allowing American forces to pour into Iraq from Saudi Arabia.

General “Stormin’ ” Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of all coalition forces said, “I can’t say enough about the two Marine divisions. If I use words like ‘brilliant,’ it would really be an under description of the absolutely superb job that they did in breaching the so-called ‘impenetrable barrier.’ It was a classic — absolutely classic — military breaching of a very, very tough minefield, barbed wire, fire trenches-type barrier.”

Now our Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan, pulling out of Iraq for, let’s hope, the last time. The have served with distinction in places we didn’t even know existed, like Falujah. There is some controversy over the weapons used against the Iraqi insurgents, but I say, fuck’em, it’s war and war is a dirty business.

General Mattis said this to Iraqi tribal leaders: “I come in peace, I didn’t bring artillery. But I am pleading with you with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all.”

But in September 2001, while serving in Afghanistan, one young Marine, private Mike Armendariz-Clark, put it better than any politician or general ever could when he told the New York Times: “We signed up knowing the risk. Those innocent people in New York didn’t go to work thinking there was any kind of risk.”

Marines have been fighting in our longest war, Afghanistan, from the beginning. Marines have sustained terrible casualties and due to the wonders of modern science many of these brave men and women survive to tell the story. And due to the wonders of modern communications technology, they can tell us moments after it happens. They too will all be coming home for good — and not soon enough.

Like every other branch of the military, the Marines have served their country, whether the cause was supported by all Americans or only a few. Marines follow orders. Yeah, we grumble and tell each other this officer or that is a fuckin’ moron or ask, “Who the fuck is in charge of this clusterfuck?”

But then we go and get the job done. That’s what we do, without question or hesitation. He who hesitates dies. That’s just a fact and before a recruit can wear the title of “Marine” he or she not only learns that lesson, it’s drilled into our very cores to react correctly without taking that second to think.

So, to all Marines and their loved ones, Happy Birthday Marine Corps! It doesn’t matter how long ago we wore the uniform or if we still wear it, the policy is, “Once a Marine, Always a Marine.” The custom was set years ago and then set in stone by the current Commandant of the Marine Corps, James F. Amos: “A Marine is a Marine. I set that policy two weeks ago — there’s no such thing as a former Marine. You’re a Marine, just in a different uniform and you’re in a different phase of your life. But you’ll always be a Marine because you went to Parris Island, San Diego or the hills of Quantico. There’s no such thing as a former Marine.”

Yeah, General Amos is a fuckin’ fighter pilot, but like every Marine, he’s a rifleman first.

So here’s to all the Marines, past and present, living or not: Semper Fi Motherfuckers. Ooo-Rah!

I would like to thank the fine men and women who man the post at OldPost.org for the wonderful list of quotes for, by and about Marines. Out-fuckin-standing!

Don’t You Forget About Me

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 12:01:00 -0700

Remember the movie, The Breakfast Club? Released in 1985, it ushered in the era of the “Brat Pack,” the generation of actors who were the top of the hip Hollywood scene of the 1980’s. Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy and Emilio Estevez were its teenage stars and John Hughes, who wrote and directed what many consider his best movie, cemented his place in cinema.

Oh, I don’t know, as good as it is, when you look at his credits there are a few chestnuts in there, including Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, one of the greatest films of all time! Who doesn’t want to be Ferris Bueller? If you weren’t a wisenheimer before seeing Ferris Bueller, you aspired to be one — at least just a little.
 Ben Stein in one of the iconic moments of the film: “Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?”

So, John Hughes has a string of hit films to his credit, the two best being The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Sadly, John Hughes departed this Mortal Coil August 6, 2009, but he left behind a legacy that won’t be forgotten.

It’s been decades since last watching The Breakfast Club, mainly because I hate watching good movies that have been censored for television and then interrupted for commercial messages. Monday it came on one of the HBO channels, uncut and uncensored.

The buzz about the film at the time was that it was the coming of age film to define the era of the Brat Pack: A different style of dress, a different kind of music and a new attitude. It was, but every generation has their coming of age film that defines their generation. American Graffiti, Easy Rider, Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause to name just four that I’ve seen.

And who can forget American Pie? There’s another coming of age classic. But what’s so special about The Breakfast Club? Well, for one thing it speaks to every generation as it comes of age. If you read the message boards for the movie on imdb.com there are comments and reviews from people who weren’t even born when it was first released in 1985, yet it still resonates with the generation that first saw it 26 years ago.

Most from my generation, the one that came of age ten years earlier, liked it because it spoke to the disparity between the different castes common in most high schools, especially public high schools. The big deal about the message of the film was not just the different castes, but how that disparity was approached: from the view that all five characters felt trapped by the roles that had to play to be members of their particular cliques.

The film took stereotypes, made them almost unbearably exaggerated and then deconstructed them for a feel-good moment at the end when all five students walk out of the school as a team, as opposed to the beginning of the film when they walk into the school one at a time.

To refresh your memory: there is the pretty and popular socialite girl (Molly Ringwald), the popular jock (Emilio Estevez), the nerd (Anthony Michael Hall) the goofy girl (Ally Sheedy) and the criminal (Judd Nelson).

The stereotype that gets left out of this film says a lot about the filmmaker and us, as a society. The one faction from high school that isn’t represented in the film is the average student that doesn’t aspire to be in any clique and just does their best to graduate and hopefully go to college or get a good paying job. Just like in real, adult life, the silent majority is rarely noticed.

I really didn’t identify with any of the characters, although part of me wanted to be the bad boy, John Bender. Bad boys are always portrayed as the coolest and pretty girls always seem to like bad boys best. Jocks always get the prettiest girls because they are the sports heroes. Few girls like nerds, until they grow up to be Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.

All the boys want to be with the most popular girls, but avoid like the plague the weird girls, until they become Playboy Playmates or hot and sexy actresses.

And that is the core of The Breakfast Club: the angst we endure while in high school. The pain of that awkward time remains with us forever. Boys — men — for instance, understand a character like Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs) in the film American Pie trying to masturbate with a warm apple pie because we all did something ridiculous in an effort to have an orgasm. As we get older we refine our techniques.

In the age of the Internets and new synthetic materials, we get all kinds of aids to jack-off and some life-like (I’m told) devices in which to do it. A man almost doesn’t need a real woman anymore. And we sure as Hell don’t need to try the vacuum cleaner anymore. Not that I ever did …

With The Breakfast Club, anyone and everyone can understand the inner pain of feeling like we don’t fit in, no matter how much we appear to fit in with whatever clique, or no clique, we belong, whether we knowingly join that group or get dumped in it by everyone else.

I was one of the “stoners” in high school, one of the “hippies.” But I secretly wanted to be one of the people who smiled everyday without being high. When I was in the school play I met some of them and they were really nice people.

But just like The Breakfast Club suggests, on Monday we — I — went right back to that comfort zone where we knew the rules and the role we played in our little clique, where our silent desires, fears and resentments took over just like they did every day in school. The Breakfast Club puts all that out there for us, better than any movie has before or since.

Now, nearly 40 years removed from high school, it brings out yet another angst-filled moment with the most useless, but most often asked question to ourselves: “If I could go back and do it over again …” There’s no point to asking “What if,” other than to fill our hearts and minds with regret.

What’s done is done and the best we can do is accept it. if we can make restitution to those we have harmed, then we can do that. One of the moments in the film that struck me was when the jock, Andrew, recounted how he had humiliated a smaller, weaker student, all in an effort to impress his jock friends, and more importantly, his dad. Many of us have little skeletons like that in our closets and they creep out to haunt us from time-to-time.

So, it’s time to move on. The Breakfast Club is a great film, quite entertaining, over the top at times, like when they’re dancing throughout the library, but one I might watch again in another ten years, just to remind myself I was a teenager in high school once, a long time ago.

Going Off The Rails

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:01:00 -0600

Did the Harpy, Ann Coulter, really say, “Our Blacks are so much better than their Blacks.”? She did! You have to watch the video, from FOXNews, it’s so unbelievable. The specter of race has entered the political debate and it all has to do with Herman Cain being accused of sexual harassment, not by one, not by two, but three women who worked with him for the National Restaurant Association.

It’s funny too, some of the things the righties say. Herman Cain himself. When asked if race was behind the scandal, Cain said, “Yes, but we don’t have any proof of that.”

For the righties the best defense is pulling the race card. The media — mouthpiece for the DNC! — is engaging in a high tech lynching, just like they did to Clarence Thomas. O Dear, that Clarence Thomas hearing.

In 1991 Thomas had just completed hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. Then someone leaked to the press there was an FBI interview of someone, Anita Hill, who said Thomas had sexually harassed her. So, the hearings were re-opened and Anita Hill was subpoenaed to testify before the committee.

As the hearings continued, Justice Thomas accused the Senate Democrats of a “…high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks …” The charge had a ring to it because the Senate Judiciary Committee was made up of White men.

Thanks to that little exchange, conservatives now have a rallying cry whenever a Black Conservative is questioned about something that could be damaging to their career or aspirations, like becoming President of the United States. To be a racist in the rightie eye, you just need to question a Black conservative about the facts from their past, like “Were you, or were you not, accused of sexual harassment?”

Probably the most egregious of the hypocrites is Rush Limbaugh. In the past he’s mocked Asians on air, Hispanics and of course Blacks, especially when Barack Obama was running for president. So, how does he handle the scandal growing around Herman Cain? By calling liberals and Democrats racists! Claiming that accusing a Black man of sexual harassment is using the worst of racial stereotypes. It is “… gutter partisan politics.”

Which is pretty funny considering the male politicians in the news because of their sexual peccadilloes have all been White men, beginning with former President Bill Clinton right up to Anthony Weiner, both of whom are very popular Democrats. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The other great tactic for the right is to blame the media. As Rush Limbaugh put it, this is a hit job by the website Politico, a tool of the left wing media! Apparently we White liberals are threatened by a popular Black Conservative so we instigate a smear campaign based on the racial stereotype of Black men being prone to harassing women. Something I didn’t know existed until Rush Limbaugh mentioned it.
 And call me crazy, but I always got the impression Politico is a right-leaning news organization.

This would all be a good story: left wing media bias at its worst, except that the National Restaurant Association (the other NRA) did in fact agree to terms on two separate cases of sexual harassment, giving the two women five-figure payments in exchange for them to leave the association and remain silent on the matters.

Leaving Herman Cain the only one free to talk about it, although he was bound by the confidentiality agreement as well. But that doesn’t stop Cain from talking. Each new day brings more comment from the presidential contender, often conflicting with the comments he made the day before — or even just hours before.

The timeline on Herman Cain’s comments started with him flatly denying the claims, to vaguely remembering there were claims, to remembering there were settlements to at least one claim, to him explaining to Judy Woodruff (of PBS) that it was all a misunderstanding about how tall Cain’s wife is in comparison to one of the women getting a settlement.

But then on Wednesday the story took a turn when Cain started blaming political opponents for leaking the story. The Cain Campaign blamed the Perry Campaign, who in turn blamed the Romney Campaign, which took an Eddie Haskell defense.
 I guess you have to be of a certain age to remember the character Eddie Haskell from the TV show Leave It To Beaver. He was famous for his bemused protestations of innocence, especially when he wasn’t so innocent.

Now it’s back to blaming the media. For the Right, blaming the media is always a good tactic. It doesn’t involve dragging down other Republicans, especially the guilty parties, and the Republican base loves to hate the “Lame Stream Media.” And right now that media is engaged in another high-tech lynching! They love using that term, one that is so entwined with the history of racial discrimination the two are synonymous.

Except that it isn’t anymore true for Herman Cain than it was for Clarence Thomas. The tactic of accusing the media and liberals of racism was designed to deflect the spotlight from the public figure back onto the media.

If the Right can make the story about the media, instead of Herman Cain in this case, then their man (Cain) might be able to skate the real issues, in this case, what are the particulars of these two claims of sexual harassment that were so significant other members of the National Restaurant Association were troubled by them.

Currently we are waiting to see a written statement from one of the women claiming to have been harassed by Cain. Until now Cain has been able to say anything he wants, impugning the character of his accusers. But, if Cain has broken the confidentiality agreement, does that give the two women the right to speak out on the matter?

The beauty of Herman Cain is he says whatever’s on his mind, regardless of the facts or even how ignorant he appears to be when he says something. In fact, his base has gotten so fired up Cain has had his best week for fund raising, well over a million dollars.

The downside is, Cain digs himself a deeper hole every time he speaks on the matter. The Republican base is keeping him high in the polls, neck-and-neck with Mit Romney, but how is it playing beyond the Republican primary voters?

More directly, if Cain has broken the confidentiality agreements, especially because he claims the two women weren’t very good employees, does that give the two women in those agreements grounds to go on the record just to defend themselves? If they start divulging the details of their claims, then Cain has a whole new category of topics to start responding to and if he continues to shoot from the hip and speak before thinking, which could get very interesting.

It’s not just the two women either. There are a number of anonymous sources that not only confirmed the existence of the two sexual harassment claims, but also were witnesses to some of Cain’s sexually charged comments and actions towards these women. If one or both women come forward, it’s a good bet some of those anonymous sources will come out of the shadows.

This just in: Herman Cain just proudly declared himself to be a “brother of the Koch Brothers; a Brother from another mother!” He was in front of a Tea Party crowd at an Americans For Prosperity event. Now, with the questions of how that organization, through a Wisconsin proxy, funded Cain’s campaign, which could be a very damaging declaration.

As for the Harpy, even the FOX host (Sean Hannity) she was speaking to thought her comments were too outrageous. But she’s out trying to sell her latest book and that’s her M.O. When she has a book to sell she goes on TV and radio and makes outrageous statements, like she did in 2004 when she referred to the wives of 9/11 victims as “harpies.”

We’ll see what next week brings. Hell, we’ll see what happens later today! to paraphrase Ozzy Osbourne: Herman’s going off the rails like the Cain Train!

Happy Halloween!

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:01:00 -0600

Today is All Hallows Eve — Halloween. That means tomorrow, November 1st, is All Saint’s Day, a Holy Day of Obligation in the Catholic calendar! Woe be to the sinner who doesn’t attend Mass on Tuesday. That’s when we celebrate and honor all those Christians who have died in a state of Grace. Not just the ones who have been canonized, the people who haven’t are included as well.

“Well, what’s the difference,” you may ask? Canonization is a long process that requires the person to be a named Saint to die. As well as lead a Holy life, like Mother Theresa in recent times. Then the bishop of the person’s diocese must do an investigation into the person’s life, and the person must be a Catholic, and then that bishop sends his recommendation to the Pope.

But that isn’t the end of it. The Pope and the Vatican conduct an investigation and if the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (made up of Cardinals) gives the okay, the Pope declares the person “venerable.”

Then, after all that, as if living a holy life and dying in the Grace of God isn’t enough, the saint-to-be has to perform not one, but two verifiable miracles!

“How the f …. err, heck … does a dead person do that?” Easy! Another — living — Good Catholic prays to the saint-to-be and asks the heavenly One to intercede in some earthly matter. If that happens — twice — voila! Saint Timothy! So, it’s really a long and difficult process to become a saint. If you’re harboring ambitions of becoming a saint, I would suggest starting now.

This might blow your mind, but Newt Gingrich has a shot. He converted to Catholicism to marry his third (and current) wife. Let that sink in for a bit: Saint Newt. Let’s say that he gets elected president. That would qualify as one miracle! Ask any political pundit.

Back to All Saints Day. As a child I was scared shitless over missing Mass on Holy Days of Obligation. And not just because of the possible penalties from God. Hell no. Our parents were very devout Catholics and there would be Hell to pay here on Earth if we didn’t attend Mass. And the veracity of one’s story could be checked since Catholic communities tend to be tight. All Mom had to do was get on the phone with her fellow Christian Mothers and ask around.

What we did then was to make sure we picked up a bulletin every time we went to Mass. There’s a funny story about that. Well, not about that directly, but I won’t share it here, mostly because of its licentious nature and to honor the bounds of anonymity.

Of course, on Ash Wednesday we didn’t need a bulletin if we had the ashes on our foreheads. Not too long ago The Daily Show was doing one of their bits and it was about … I forget, but it featured Vice President Joe Biden, himself a devout Catholic. Well, the bit had clips of the vice president going about his business with ashes smeared on his forehead. I took umbrage with it, but it was a funny bit.

But, here’s another criticism of Catholicism. As mentioned earlier, part of becoming a saint requires living souls to pray to saints-to-be. Well, some people consider it unchristian to pray to anyone but God, Jesus Christ, which is one of the reasons really radical members of other Christian sects don’t consider Catholics to be Christians. Even though every Good Catholic believes Jesus Christ is their personal Lord and Savior.

There are other reasons, but that’s the one that plays into this little dialogue.

So, on November 1st we all shuffle down to our parish and attend Mass to honor all the saints, beatified and otherwise. But the night before, All Hallows Eve, Good Lord!

Now, according to the Catholic Catechism, Halloween isn’t about running around in costumes and collecting candy — or Jello shots if you’re dressed as a hot nurse or sexy cop.
 Wouldn’t be cool if women went door-to-door dressed in their Halloween finery, trick-or-treating for Jello shots? Just asking.

What Good Catholics do is prayerfully prepare for the feast that is to follow on All Saint’s Day. This idea of running around in costumes and doing unspeakable things entered our culture through the “demon lore of the ancient Druids.”

Okay, when the earliest Christians were out bringing the Pagans and Heathens into the fold, they would allow certain customs to be incorporated, either officially or informally. And from different regions and countries come different customs. In Latin America, for instance, they celebrate the Day of the Dead. No, it isn’t a Wes Craven production, it’s an actual holiday celebrated on November 1st.

But the custom of costumes for Halloween has at least some origin in the Day of the Dead celebrations. Latin Americans especially like to create skeletons and dress up like skeletons to celebrate. And they make and hand out all sorts of sweet treats. Amidst the merriment they honor those who have gone on before us.

So, here we are on Halloween, a most secular “holiday,” the Monday after a weekend filled with Halloween parties. You know all sorts of wickedness has taken place this weekend. Sort of like a second Mardi Gras; four days of debauchery, complete with outlandish and sinful costumes and over the top displays of gluttony, drunkenness and lust. Everything a person could want in an extended weekend.

One of the funniest things I saw this weekend was Real Time With Bill Maher. At the end of his show he does “New Rules.” Well this week he ended with his diatribe against prescription mood drugs for children, exhorting parents to put LSD in their children’s candy. Now, that sounds crazy, even criminal, but if you watch the segment you’ll get his point — or not.

Apparently people are worried their kids will get drug-laced candy when they go trick-or-treating, which is allegedly worse than getting Ritalin, Ativan and other drugs. I don’t really agree with him, but it was funny — and informative!

Hope everyone survived this weekend intact. If you’re going out tonight, have fun and drive safe. If you’re taking your young’uns trick-or-treating, good luck and have as much fun as they are having because in the grand scheme of things, this day is for the kids. And if you’re a Catholic, don’t forget to attend Mass on Tuesday.

Happy Halloween!

The End

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 09:01:00 -0600

Picking up from where we left off Saturday … Oh yes, there was a slight problem with the blog, which is why there were no photos on the last one. But, as you can see the problem has been corrected.

So last week was historic. Thursday Muammar el-Qaddafi was found and executed, by a 20-year old wearing a New York Yankees cap, his bloody corpse paraded around his hometown of Surt, all to the joyous satisfaction of the Libyan people.

After 40-plus years of a brutal dictatorship, the people of Libya got their revenge. Was it justice? He got no less than what his opponents (and those unlucky enough to be in his way) got: an execution without the pleasantries of a judicial system.

There was a video, shot with someone’s cell-phone camera, showing Qaddafi being pulled from the drainage pipe, pushed around and punched and then shot. And then shot some more as the jubilant crowd pumped bullets into his lifeless body.

You know I understand why people kill other people in these situations, the joy of knowing a brutal tyrant is dead is understandable, but to revel in the actual act of killing someone, I’ve never comprehended that.

This is different than the crowd of freaks cheering Texas Governor Rick Perry for executing over 280 prisoners. The people in that audience didn’t actually have to pull the trigger, so to speak, so they are about as far removed from killing someone as a person watching a shoot’em up movie at the local cinema. It’s a lot different from being the person in the death chamber who actually pushes the buttons.

In Libya, Qaddafi’s killers took pleasure in the act and that is just appalling. As is the crowd that cheered Rick Perry. Years ago while I was still living in Milwaukee, I met a man who had survived a lynch mob in Marion, Indiana, James Cameron.

In 1982 his autobiography was published and the cover photo was of the lynching itself, showing two Black men, Cameron’s friends Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith hanging from a tree and the crowd of white people smiling and cheering, one man gleefully pointing to the hanging tree. Pictures of crowds joyfully participating in lynchings are always disturbing. I don’t get it. Why would anyone consider the killing of another person something to celebrate?

Back to Qaddafi. After the United States, along with NATO (Britain and France in particular), intervened and became the rebels’ air force. President Obama chose to lead from behind, forcing France and Great Britain to take the lead. But our troops, piloting either manned or unmanned aircraft, flew more missions over Libya than any other nation. And it was our forces that provided the intelligence to get the mission done correctly.

Interestingly enough, despite the victory in defeating the Qaddafi regime, Republicans here insulted the president, one, Marco Rubio, most directly. None of them wanted to credit the president on his leadership in Libya and Rubio went so far as to thank France and Great Britain while slamming President Obama. Ironically, Rubio and his Republican colleagues consider themselves to be patriotic.
 Reminds me of when the Dixie Chicks were blacklisted just for saying they were embarrassed to be from the same state as President Bush after he started the war in Iraq. I wonder why the same people aren’t up in arms over Rubio’s comments. Weren’t his comments unpatriotic? Actually, I don’t wonder why that is; their opinions on patriotism (and many other subjects) only apply when they are criticizing people with different political views.
 And this little nugget: As it turns out, Marco Rubio fudged his family history to advance his political career. He claimed his family were exiles from Castro’s Cuba. Turns out, his family left Cuba two and a half years before Castro came to power. They were actually fleeing Bautista’s Cuba.

On Friday, just as the news of Rubio lying about his family’s history hit the news wire, President Obama pre-empted that story by announcing all troops in Iraq would be home by Christmas, fulfilling one of his campaign promises. I never really thought Obama should take much credit for it because all he had done was sign off on a plan first put into action by President Bush in 2008.

My opinion changed though when after he had announced the plan Republicans started criticizing him for pulling out too early, for letting our enemies know our troops movements and leaving Iraq open to a take over by Iran. The harshest criticism came from Arizona Senator John McCain, one of the chief proponents of the Iraq War and one of the very few who thinks our troops should remain in Iraq indefinitely.

Long before Bush started the war in March 2003, Middle East experts were warning us that Iran would gain influence in the region and Iraq in particular if Saddam Hussein were removed from power. Even Middle East advisors from the Bush 41 Administration were warning of severe repercussions if we undertook a war with Iraq. Not to mention a civil war could occur as a result. But the neocons charged on anyway, claiming we would be greeted as liberators and our troops would only be engaged for six months.

Now, eight years and nine months later—and over 4,400 America lives lost, over 32,000 wounded Americans severely wounded, and close to a trillion dollars spent directly on this war (no one is counting the cost of care for the wounded warriors) — it is finally over. Now we can finally say Mission Accomplished.

So, after hearing Republicans criticizing President Obama for announcing the end of our involvement in Iraq, in essence completing the plan started by his predecessor, it seemed logical to give Obama all the credit. He is after all following through on the plan as he promised. And if the Republicans want to give Obama all the credit, well by golly, I’ll join them.

Senator McCain, Obama’s rival in the 2008 presidential elections, put out a press release that started: “Today marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world. I respectfully disagree with the President: this decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It is a consequential failure of both the Obama Administration — which has been more focused on withdrawing from Iraq than succeeding in Iraq since it came into office — as well as the Iraqi government.”

There’s more to it, but he never mentions this was originally President Bush’s plan for withdrawal. Nor does he address the analysis of Middle East experts who all say there is nothing more American troops can do, it’s now up to the Iraqis to decide their future. He makes the claim that no senior military officers agree with the withdrawal.

Senator McCain has been wrong about Iraq since Bush announced his intentions to start a war with that nation. The Daily Kos has a partial list of McCain’s errors and contradictions. Click Here if you’d like to read it.

But there is this lingering question: where were the Republicans when President Bush and his staff created the plan and signed the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq? I don’t recall them being so vocal three and a half years ago.

It’s about time this war ended, this war that should have never been. It begins to close one of the worst chapters in American history, when “we” used an attack on our soil as the precept for attacking a nation that had never attacked us. Our troops suffered and died for a lie, or more accurately, a string of lies.

There were no weapons of mass destruction; the pre-war intelligence had told us that. There were no links to Al Queda, pre war intelligence told us that too. It wasn’t a short war with minimal casualties, as promised by Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, John McCain, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and others. It has lasted almost nine years, not six months. Twice as long as World War II.

Most egregiously, the responsibility and weight of this war has fallen to a very few in this nation: the men and women who served and their families. The rest of us were told to go shopping!

One memory I cherish though is my lovely niece Nancy, now married and expecting a second child. She is a Navy Corpsman in the Reserves, but in 2003 she went to war with the U.S. Marines. She made me proud once again to have worn the uniform … and humbled. She represents everything that is good about America. We disagree on many things, but that doesn’t get in the way of my admiration, respect and love.

Friday the president told us the end was finally in sight; welcome news for most everyone, especially the men and women who served. Let history remember them as our nation’s greatest heroes; they earned it.

Greatest Show on Earth!

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:01:00 -0600

This has been an historic week. On Friday President Obama promised all of our troops in Iraq would be home for the Holidays. On Thursday Moammar Ghadaffi was captured and killed by the rebels who overthrew his government. And on Tuesday the two presumptive frontrunners — not the actual frontrunner — in the Republican Clusterfuck to the White House, Mit Romney and Rick Perry, nearly came to blows during the latest CNN debate.

Okay, that last one isn’t even remotely momentous historically, but it was entertaining! “Anderson? Anderson! Rick Perry isn’t playing fair!” Boo-hoo-hoo!

And of course the good governor of Texas was acting like a petulant child who didn’t have a clear argument so his only recourse was to interrupt his more popular opponent and try and yell louder! Remember in junior (or middle) school having the “fights’ where you and your mortal enemy (at least for that week) would yell at each other and slap box each other’s arms? That was the Republican debate!

Funnier still, the camera panned over to the moderator, Anderson Cooper, and he was smiling when Mit Romney tried to get Cooper to intervene. Much to everyone’s pleasure, Gloria Vanderbilt’s son wasn’t having any of it! That was good TV! It’s not much of a surprise the Republican presidential debates are getting higher ratings than just about everything else on the boob tube.

All the commentators were pointing to Romney’s comment about “running for office, for god’s sake,” as the most telling moment for Romney in this debate. I beg to differ. The most telling moment of Romney’s character, or at least as revealing, was his instinct to get someone to intercede on his behalf.

Should he become president and things get tough, who is he going to call on to intercede on his behalf? The vice president? We saw how that worked with President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Most Americans, even those on the fringes of the political spectrum, are looking for a leader and a leader isn’t going to ask mom or dad — or a debate moderator — to jump in and help him with the fight.

It’s a trait of the gilded class. The rich kids never have much to worry about because mom and dad will always be there to bail them out. Often literally. So they get used to having someone there who is almost obligated to have their back when the going gets tough. Not just have their back, but to bail them out and fix the problem. That’s Mit Romney’s biggest failing and the reason he won’t be the president of the United States in 2013.

The fact that his reason for not employing undocumented workers had to do with his own selfish interests and not for any moral or legal reasons is really not such a big deal. Most of us understand that. At least he’s not knowingly employing illegal immigrants. Who really cares about his motives? Would he be a better person if his objections to undocumented workers were for moral and legal reasons? Yeah, but short of that, not hiring them for selfish reasons works too.

We elected Bill Clinton knowing he had a penchant for women not his wife. And then re-elected him, knowing he was lying when he said he didn’t fool around. And when Republicans failed to put him out of office for it — please! The perjury was just a ruse! — we gave President Clinton the highest approval ratings of any president in decades. As a nation, we’re okay with slightly flawed leaders. Most of us don’t approve of people cheating on their spouses, but we’ll overlook it if the cheaters are doing the country good.

Just like we’ll overlook Romney’s selfish reason for not hiring undocumented workers. But we won’t hire someone to be president if he can’t hold his own in a fight. Good job Anderson Cooper for exposing Romney’s real weakness.

President Obama is lucky Ambassador Jon Huntsman isn’t anywhere near the top of the Republican leader board — yet.

As for the actual frontrunner in the Republican Clusterfuck to the White House; he just insulted about a billion people in the area of Asia that includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kurdistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — especially Uzbekistan — with his insulting comment, “…when they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I'm going to say, you know, I don't know. Do you know?”

Well done Herman! Now that’s proactive foreign policy. Do I know? No, but I’m not running for president and won’t carry the responsibility of leading this nation in a world the continually gets smaller. Someone running for president ought to have a better answer than “Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan.” At least President Bush had a better answer when he was running for president 11 years ago. He just admitted he didn’t know. Rather cavalierly, but he didn’t try to insult anyone in the process.
 The president of Uzbekistan is Islam Karimov and the prime minister is Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoyev. Had to consult Wikipedia.

Then of course he says he’s pro-life but believes it should be up to the woman on whether or not to have an abortion — but abortion shouldn’t be legal. He wasn’t getting peppered with “gotcha” questions on CNN or MSNBC when he contradicted himself, often in the same sentence. He was on FOXNews.

Cain has no interest in being president. He doesn’t have the money raised or the staff hired for a national campaign. He’s just out to sell his books and bump up his speaking fees and apparently he’s doing real well as a motivational speaker.

Now we can say the Republican Clusterfuck to the White House is the greatest show on Earth.

*Part 2 tomorrow.

Bridge of Sighs

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 08:01:00 -0600

It’s no mystery to me why people go off the deep end. I mean, it’s understandable. It really is. When someone finally gets to a point when they can’t take it anymore, whatever “it” is, and they react in a violent explosion of some sort, I understand that. In fact the question for me is this: who really are the insane ones? The ones who explode and vent all their frustration, anger and fear on the nearest undeserving targets, or those of us who keep it all in, accepting everything as being just the way it’s supposed to be, for good or ill?

At some point it just seems logical to explode … but then you think it through and what does an emotional meltdown gain? Certainly not satisfaction for all of our ills and worries, the source of all our frustration, anger and fear.

The people who do explode and commit some horrific crime, what happens to them? If they don’t put the last bullet in their own brains, they generally end up imprisoned for the rest of their lives and that sad, graphically tragic end is their final solution. And no one is left happy by it, least of all the one who took the leap of faith that lashing out would somehow change things for the better. It just made things worse, which is why 99% of suicides are lonely acts. Either way, the tragic explosion or the lonely suicide, both are quite understandable.

So, the first thought is: “Tim is contemplating suicide.” No. I don’t own a firearm and I’m not really disposed to jumping off a bridge. Tried that once in 1982. Got up on the bottom rail, looked down at the parking lot below, worried about falling on the car of an unsuspecting motorist, thereby ruining their day and had a change of heart. Looked around me and saw the Vet Center a block away and decided to give them a try. If that didn’t work then by god, I’d screw the unsuspecting motorist and take the leap. Apparently it worked.

The bullshit saying is: “Money can’t buy happiness.” Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always been happier having money than not having enough. At the very least money can buy peace of mind. If there are no worries about having a roof over my head, having transportation, the basic necessities of food and a place to bathe — and a phone — what else is there?

A lot, if you’re a normal human being. Independence is a big deal. It’s not a nice feeling being dependent on others for rides when public transit just won’t do. Mass transit in America sucks. Outside of places like New York and Milwaukee, it seems like the mass transit systems were designed to punish those of us who don’t own automobiles.

Most bus lines here in San Diego run intermittently throughout the week and some don’t run at all on the weekends. For instance: in San Diego the #20 runs either from Downtown to Mira Mesa and back, or from Downtown to Escondido and back, alternating the route every half hour. That means, if you have to go north of Mira Mesa, that bus only runs once an hour. Very inconvenient. So inconvenient as a matter of fact, people think twice about taking jobs that depend on that irregular bus route. What’s more, it’s the only bus route going north to Escondido.

More directly, a trip that would take 20 minutes by car will take no less than an hour and, depending on the number of connections needed, can take more than two hours. There is no convenience to public transportation, at least not in San Diego. It’s cheap and all that’s available to the population that can’t afford private transportation.

And a personal slight: the closest bus stop to my place is just over a mile, if I’m heading south on that #20 line and I catch the bus coming from north of Mira Mesa. But, if I’m catching the one from Mira Mesa, that stop is nearly a mile and a half.

Back in Milwaukee I was never more than two blocks from a bus stop and often just a few steps. Having a car was convenient, but being able to use the bus was more convenient, especially going Downtown. Bus trips to the Westside ’burbs would be long, but not prohibitively so.

But this isn’t about the crappy mass transit system in San Diego, although I do give kudos to our light rail — trolley — system. This is about that feeling of despair. If you’re looking for a job with a decent pay check, good luck. If you’re out of work, well, too bad.

All the metrics measuring income for the past 30 years show the top 10% getting richer exponentially, while the rest of us either flat line or decline in real wages. Then we hear these dicks on the TV and radio defending the income disparity and a presidential candidate dissing the people who are out of work. Hell yeah, going off the hook is not only understandable, it seems the most reasonable response.

Until you see the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. No violence, no off the hook behavior, except by the police, just a mass demonstration of people from all walks of life (not just young people) protesting the injustice of the economic system that controls our nation.

What isn’t understandable are those who dismiss or denounce the demonstrations, especially if they are just as squeezed as the rest of us. The fact is, the major banks are hoarding the money, well over two trillion dollars and, just three years after we bailed them out, are recording record profits — as much as 29% for Wells Fargo. That’s $4,100,000,000 or an increase of more than a billion dollars over 2010. And the year ain’t even over!
 Citibank had an increase of 74%, or $3,8000,000,000.

The banks don’t want to lend to small businesses, so they go out of business, they don’t want to lend to consumers or renegotiate home loans, so people are still losing their homes in mind-boggling numbers; they, in fact, want even less regulation and more of our tax dollars in the way of less taxes for them!

Well, enough is enough and the people of America are marching on the source of this injustice: Wall Street. Not only that, this movement has gone viral and can now be seen in over 1,500 cities around the globe. Not to mention, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL and countless other localities, big and small, around the nation.

When this movement first got mentioned in the media, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) called them a “mob.” Now he’s walking that back, almost sprinting, saying the “mobs” are rightly angered. His solution (and this is so obvious), less regulation and lower taxes for the wealthiest Americans and the banks! Basically, create the same conditions that brought about this current recession. Sound economic policy there, you dipshit!

And I read this from Paul Joseph Watson on The Hive Daily: “Despite their honest intentions, many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters are being suckered into a trap and calling for the very ‘solutions’ that are part of the financial elite’s agenda to torpedo the American middle class – higher taxes and more big government.”

What? Wall Street, the nesting area of the “financial elites,” is calling for higher taxes and more regulation? Well, Watson is a conspiracy theorist so who knows how he came to that conclusion, but he has a couple web sites so his twisted ideas get attention.

So, millions of Americans are beyond frustrated, they’re on the edge and all they get is rhetoric. Nothing gets done. The president proposes an actual jobs plan and the Republicans block it. Republicans block higher taxes for the financial elites and want to further deregulate the financial industry.

Instead of going postal or eating a bullet, here’s what you can do: join one of those “mobs” protesting against Wall Street. There’s at least one in each state. Why let the bastards win? Yeah, right now they have the upper hand, but as many people have pointed out, our demonstrations, in the streets and the voting booths, can beat Big Money in the next elections.

MSNBC commentator Dylan Ratigan is heavily promoting the Get the Money Out campaign, promoting an Amendment to the Constitution that would make all political campaigns publicly financed. I would suggest signing his petition, which now has over 200,000 signers.

Protesting Wall Street is one step in the campaign for justice, but getting the money out of politics is equally important, maybe more so because those financial mega-giants who control Wall Street … also control government at all levels. Along with the oil, insurance and pharmaceutical industries. And the NRA. Get all the money out!

Sure beats jumping off that bridge and possibly ruining someone else’s day.

Pizza Rut

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 08:01:00 -0600

Just heard Chris Matthews use the term, “dicking around” on Hardball Thursday. Yowza! It’s not the first time Matthews has been vulgar on his program, but that’s probably the most vulgar he’s ever been and I watch just about every day. Matthews has been getting back in touch with his working class Catholic upbringing in the past few years. And we working class Catholics can be pretty fuckin’ vulgar! Makes me proud!

Most of the day here has been spent dicking around with … err … more personal and vulgar pursuits. Sure the TV’s have been on, watching CNN and MSNBC, but mostly they have been a backdrop to the online tasks like commiserating with Tigers fans about the poor showing of the Detroit and Milwaukee teams in the MLB playoffs.

Damn Brewers … damn Tigers … how could the Brew Crew lose two in a row to those effin’ Cardinals? And now their down in the series, 3-2? C’mon Brewers! Win the last two games in Milwaukee!

Well, that’s a distraction, I guess.

So, the new jobs plan from Republican Congressmen was introduced in the House of Representatives. It’s an anti-abortion bill. That’s been their main focus since taking over that body of government; the House Republicans have introduced anti-abortions bills at least six times since January. And of course the bill will pass in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and that’s all that will happen.

Speaker of the House John Boehner knows it will not become law; it won’t even come up for a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate, let alone get passed. And even if it did the president would veto the anti-abortion legislation.

All the Republicans are doing is stalling. They don’t want to give the president and the Democrats a victory, regardless of how much it hurts the economy and the middle class. They are banking on the public sticking the president with the responsibility for the failed economy. You can hear it with their snide remark about “Blaming Bush.”

The fact is, because of the unrestricted gambling with the financial markets, unfettered by regulations and any real enforcement, for the eight years the Republican Party controlled government Bush and company ran this country into the ground.

People seem to forget: the financial crisis started coming to a head in early 2008 — when George W. Bush was still president. Republicans like to make a big deal about the 15 trillion dollar national debt. What they don’t like to mention is that 12 trillion was on the books before President Obama took the oath of office.

But god forbid anyone mentions Bush (43) and the Republican-controlled Congress that got us into this mess. Even if the president had a cooperative Congress we would still be in the recession. Lest anyone forget, this is the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Hell yeah, blame Bush!

So, the remedy, as the Republicans see it, is to go back to the policies that started this recession. In fact, they don’t have to go back to it because not much has really changed. What they want to do is go back to the 19th Century when corporations could do anything — literally — and the Supreme Court ruled child labor laws were unjust.

Rick Perry, the forgotten candidate, has been campaigning on opening up all federal lands for oil exploration. His claim is that there is enough oil under the ground to satisfy America’s needs for the next 300 years. Not surprisingly, his claim is false, but if Herman Cain can gain traction and attention with that “9-9-9” plan, then why not go with something equally outrageous?

The similarities don’t end there. Both Cain and Perry, like the rest of the GOP field, want to get rid of regulations and the EPA. But that’s not all. Perry and Cain want to end Medicare and Social Security. Perry is now famous for calling Social Security a “Ponzi” scheme and in Cain’s famous plan, he writes:
 “The federal government has imposed expensive and often counter-productive social and welfare programs on the states and the people. It is time to admit the mistakes, and get the federal government out of the way. This will allow states, cities, churches, charities and businesses to offer a helping hand instead of a handout where they live. People closest to the problems are the best ones to solve the problems effectively.”

The Pizzaman doesn’t come right out and say “end Social Security,” but what does the phrase “… get the federal government out of the way …” mean? In several spots on his website, especially in his “9-9-9 Plan,” Cain mentions ending the payroll taxes that pay for Social Security and Medicare. Well, if we don’t have funding for Social Security and Medicare, doesn’t that end Social Security and Medicare?

Herman Cain is right about one thing in his plans to end Social Security and Medicare: we did pay for it and we are most certainly entitled to it. Explain to me again Mr. Cain: how and why are you ending the social safety net I and 50 million-plus Americans will be depending on in the next two decades?

Cain uses his experience as a businessman in much of his website, but one item I found quite entertaining. It’s in his economic plan: “I have served as an executive of several major corporations. When times were tough and money was tight, I asked our employees to cut back drastically, and explained why it was necessary, and they did.”

Of course they did Herman! If they didn’t, they would soon be out of a job! Has anyone ever experienced a democracy in a non-union shop? The boss comes in and says, “Okay everyone! All in favor of a 20% cut in wages, please raise your hands.”

Cain’s one (and only) economic advisor is a bank clerk, Rich Lowrie, a guy with no training in economics, no degrees; his only experience in economics coming from his employment in a bank. My nephew is an assistant manager of a bank and he’s a pretty smart guy. In fact, he could probably figure out the particulars of our recession and viable solutions. But I doubt he would do what Lowrie is suggesting as a solution: copying the default tax plan from the video game SimCity.

Yeah! I had the same reaction! Apparently Cain’s financial advisor saw how well the 9-9-9 Plan worked in a video game so he just assumed it would work in real life! That’s keeping it simple! And, I’ll have to admit, another level of financial/economic experience.

Makes you wonder if Cain will have to pay any kind of royalties to the makers of SimCity, Maxis, for plagiarizing their plan.

Here we are, pushing 1,200 words and we haven’t even gotten to the fun stuff, like Rick Perry’s wife crying about how her husband has been attacked by their own party and persecuted for their faith — after one of Perry’s major supporters attacked Mit Romney’s religion. That’s rich.

It gets better though. When asked about his wife’s tearful turn at the microphone, Perry brushed it off saying she gets too emotional and takes things too personally. He didn’t even defend his wife! What a douchebag!

Then there’s Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida. Instead of putting people to work, he wants to cut 440,000 jobs. He just introduced a bill that mandates cutting 10% of the federal workforce, even though over 600,000 government employees have already lost their jobs since the start of this recession in 2008.That’s the Republican jobs bill, the Senate version, right there.
- Rubio also said Social Security and Medicare make Americans weak and lazy. You work hard all your life, earning a little something to retire on and Rubio says you’re lazy? And he represents Florida? What were they thinking?

Okay, now that we’ve crossed the 1,300-word threshold, it’s time to close. Sadly, I haven’t even mentioned the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations! They have sprung up in over 1,400 communities and continue to grow! So, despite what the pundits and Republicans are claiming, the OWS crowd is succeeding! The fact that the protest expanded from that one little park on Wall Street to every corner of American proves it.

More on them another day. It’s the weekend, let’s go crazy!

Fixing the Elections

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:01:00 -0600

There are two big changes in the elections that will most certainly change the outcomes of the 2012 general elections, both fueled by Republican greed.

For the past 50 years, the primaries have been a four-year tradition that began in the snowy confines of Iowa and New Hampshire. Everything that could be possibly said or written about the voting wisdom, peculiarities or idiocy of the Iowans and New Hampshire Yankees had been written or said over and over again.

In fact, the commentary on the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primaries had its own narrative, based pretty much on the predictability of what reporters and pundits would say about the Iowans who showed up at the caucuses in the cornfields and the voting booths by the sea. Every four years every news outlet would have a story about a caucus in the living room or barn of an Iowa farmer and a story about the first and last people to cast votes in New Hampshire.

With both, we saw citizens tramping through blizzards and sub-zero temperatures to take part in this great tradition of being the first to make an impression on the coming presidential general elections, which were 10 months away. And of course, to see these images, whether in pictures and video or through our minds’ eyes as they ingested the words on a printed page, there had to be reporters and pundits tramping through the blizzards and sub-zero temperatures to get those stories.

Without question, going to the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primaries was a right of passage for every political reporter, at least in the past 60 years. To even get to the point of being able to suffer through the grueling primary season, the ambitious reporter had to pay his or her dues covering the police beat and/or the human-interest desk. That’s where the reporter hones his skills collecting facts and information and putting it all into short, concise sentences. Unlike this space.

Then, as a reporter, you would get promoted to local politics with the local news outlet and then, back in the day, your newspaper might let you cover national politics and send you out on the road … sounds so romantic — until you’re standing in the driveway of a farm in Iowa, in the middle of February, in the middle of a blizzard with temperatures so cold you can feel your eyeballs turning into ice cubes.

And then you get a job with one of the Big Boys; a national television network or maybe the Old Gray Lady or WaPo. The amenities are a little nicer. You can stay at a Hyatt or Westin Hotel instead of Motel 6 and the Holiday Inn. And you might actually get a voucher to rent a car and a bigger budget for food. And maybe, just maybe, the candidate and his front person would know you by name and invite you to have dinner because, by golly, as a reporter you had arrived.

And off through the primary season you would go, from Iowa to New Hampshire, to South Carolina, Nevada, Texas, and “Super Tuesday” when a whole bunch of states would have primaries, finally ending in the big enchilada — California. By then, conventional wisdom dictates, the nominee would be, for all intents and purposes, selected. Although in 2008, we didn’t know until July if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee.

But all that is changing for 2012. Iowa has so few people and New Hampshire is so frickin’ small, none of the other states want to have the issues dictated to them by these two miniscule blips on the electoral map. Everybody knows ethanol is a losing proposition, but because Iowa is the first state to have a primary anything, the candidates have to suck up to the citizens who grow all that corn, promising government subsidies so they can continue to make a fuel that cost at least twice as much as petroleum.

So, with the Republican field so undecided the Republican parties in the other major primary states hungry to gain the spotlight, they are now jockeying to get their primaries moved to January, before Iowa and New Hampshire.

Well, that just upsets the apple cart! Tradition says Iowa and New Hampshire come first! Not Florida and Nevada! And South Carolina? Honky please! So, to one up the three states that have decided to move their primaries to January, Iowa and New Hampshire are moving theirs accordingly. We could conceivably see the Iowa Caucuses take place in December of this year and the New Hampshire Primary on the same day as the bowl game to decide the NCAA national championship. Seriously.

Who in their right mind would pass up that game to go vote? And this gets even weirder. Because the last day of the NFL regular season will be January 1, 2012, there won’t be any major bowl games played on that day. No Rose Bowl on New Years Day? That’s a fuckin’ outrage! And on Tuesday January 3, 2012, the Allstate Sugar Bowl takes place, on the only Tuesday available for Iowa and/or New Hampshire to have their primaries before the interloping states of Florida, Nevada and South Carolina.

Everybody wants to be relevant in this election. If a candidate is so popular he (or she, if you really want to include Michele Bachmann) wraps up the nomination on or before Super Tuesday, which is March 6, 2012, then all the primaries that follow really don’t matter and which states want to be irrelevant? That’s a rhetorical question of course. So states are hurrying to get their primaries placed on the schedule in February, which means, for Iowa and New Hampshire, they have to move theirs up to remain the leaders of the pack.

In fact, New Hampshire has a law that says their primary has to be at least seven days ahead of all other primary elections. The silly season just gets sillier. Let’s see how the issues fall in the coming months. Already we’ve seen the … eight, or is it nine … Republican Candidates suck up to the CPAC Convention and the Values Voters convention, with Mit Romney taking it on the chin for being a Mormon.

And of course President Obama remains the enemy, just ask Hank Williams, Jr.

The other thing that will have a big impact on the 2012 elections: Republican-controlled states have now enacted the new generation of Jim Crow laws designed to suppress voter turn-out. In essence, people have to provide state-issued photo I.D.’s to vote.

The argument being we have to have photo I.D.’s to get on planes, drive cars, buy alcohol and tobacco products — although I’ve never been carded for either — and of course the big reason: to avoid voter fraud. Which is a whopping … .004%? Point Oh Oh Four Percent?

According to statistics the odds of voter fraud occurring is less than the odds of being hit by lightening. In other words, the possibility of someone voting who is not legally capable of voting is so rare as to not be consequential to any elections. In fact, out of approximately 120 million votes cast in the 2004 elections, the Bush Justice Department found only 86 cases of actual voter fraud.

The fact is, American citizens, native born or naturalized, have a right to vote, whether they drive a car or not, whether they own a registered firearm or not. In Texas you can use a gun permit as I.D., but not a college I.D. from the University of Texas (or other colleges).
 One 92 year old woman was denied the right to vote because she didn’t have her marriage certificate!
 One congressman, Steve King, a Republican (naturally) from Iowa, said he would like to restrict voting to property owners. Well, he said he missed the good ole days when only White male property owners could vote.

The true reason for the new voter I.D. laws is to suppress the votes of minorities, young people and the poor, many of whom do not own photo I.D.’s. And getting a state-issued I.D. requires money. Ask a person living in poverty what’s more important: being able to vote or putting food on the table. And, in many states students can vote in the municipalities where they attend school. Many of the new laws say students can’t do that anymore, unless their parents live in that locality, even though the students live in the communities where they attend college.

Here’s what really upsets me is that no one is trying to challenge these laws in court. Fifty years ago laws in the South that were designed to prevent African-Americans from voting were overturned. It’s time to do the same with the 21st Century version of these laws.

It’s On!

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 12:01:00 -0600

To Hell with politics. To Hell with President Obama, Governor Rick Perry, Mit Romney, Newt Gingrich, Governor Chris Christie — especially Chris Christie — Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann. Sure, that’s important and all, but it don’t mean a thing ’cause I need some swing: Milwaukee Brewers baseball swing.

That’s right, the Milwaukee Brewers are in the National League Championship Series for the first, the second time they’ve been to a league championship series, the first one being against the California Angels in 1982, which they won, going on to the 1982 World Series — against them fuckin’ St. Louis Cardinals.

Damn Cardinals. No love lost between these two teams. No love lost between these two baseball cities. Hell no! The ’82 Series was named the “Suds Series” because St. Louis is the home of Budweiser and Anheuser-Busch and Milwaukee is the home of good beer: Miller, Pabst Blue Ribbon and, back in the day, Schlitz.

All those cocky Budweiser drinkers, thinking they got it going on. Puh-leeze! Milwaukee didn’t become the Beer Capital of the World for nothing!

And now you got these perennial playoff Cardinals starting the game in Milwaukee. Yeah sure, they score in the top of the first, but that don’t mean a thing. There’s still eight and a half innings to go and pitcher Zack Greinke is just getting warmed up.

This will be a good game, as long as the Brewers walk away with the W. Bottom of the first and Ryan Braun has just hit a two-run homer, taking the lead. Cards pitcher Jaime Garcia is rattled; he hit Prince Fielder, sending him to First Base and then walked Ricky Weeks in four straight pitches. And there’s only one out.

It’s time to stop this typing and put my full attention to the game. This is a fight, a brawl; this is the Brew Crew against them goddamn Cards. Most people might think that Milwaukee’s major rivalry would be with the Chicago Cubs because the Chicago White Sox were the Brewers most hated rivals when the Brew Crew was part of the American League. But that’s not the case. Milwaukee has a score to settle with St. Louis, one that’s needed to be addressed for 29 years.

Gotta say this though: it’s kind of weird to have two teams from the same division playing for the league championship, but such is life in the Wild Card era.

So, this blog is short, far too short for the average reader. Probably just right for the rest of you. But I have priorities and that means watching the Brewers take care of Game One of the National League Championship Series.

There won’t be an ACLS today between the Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers. Rain put that game on hold until tomorrow, so this is it—until the Packers take on the Atlanta Falcons at 5:30 (PST). Ah yes, the Green Bay Packers, Super Bowl XLV Champs, unbeaten so far this season. They take their aerial show into the Georgia Dome.

If anyone is thinking of calling, I’m gonna be busy all day.

A Nip and a Grizzley

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:01:00 -0600

It’s finally happened! The Daily Show With Jon Stewart put me off! Really, after all the stuff they have shown, all the jokes and funny segments like “Baracknophobia,” “Clusterf**k to the White House,” “Mess O' Potamia” and this particularly disturbing segment: “Areola 51.”

With that segment I was forced to not only see a segment from a TV show I never watch, Dancing With the Stars, I had to watch the Angry Lady from Headline News (HLN), Nancy Fuckin’ Grace! Dancing! Good grief! After seeing that segment, with Grace’s massive chest heaving after the exertion of dancing, we now know to what lengths HLN goes to make Nancy Grace look good for her TV show. DWTS didn’t go that far.

The big deal wasn’t transgender man Chazz Bono, which is an entirely different story unto itself, but no, this segment was about Nancy Grace’s Nip Slip.

Let’s be honest, I’m always hoping to see “wardrobe malfunctions” on these types of shows and for a few brief segments, I watched it. Like when Hugh Hefner’s former girlfriend Holly Madison was a contestant. She got booted on the first episode of her season — with no wardrobe malfunctions.

In the very first season, which I didn’t see, Playmate and General Hospital star Kelly Monaco won, but then, was forced into a do-over because so many people wanted some other guy, now long forgotten, to win. Anyway, Monaco had a wardrobe malfunction. Being the consummate professional that she is, nothing was exposed as Monaco’s quick hands saved the day — DAMMIT!

Thankfully, she has several hundred photos, and a few videos, from her Playboy Playmate days we can gleefully peruse, but still, what’s the point of a show like Dancing With the Stars? Maybe I’m just too jaded. And to get a nip slip from the likes of Nancy Grace, that’s like seeing your own Mom naked.

A situation that did happen for my brother Rick and I, oh so many years ago. If I could be permitted a short tangent here, as if anyone could possibly stop me. Here’s how it occurred. Dear Old Dad had a workshop in the basement, complete with a workbench filled with drawers. Being inquisitive types — nosey — Rick and I often investigated the drawers.

Well one day Rick finds a stash of old photos from the 1940’s, when Dear Old Dad was serving our nation as a Sailor during WWII. There were two photos of a dark-haired beauty dressed in a hula grass skirt — topless. Jackpot! But then we saw a portrait of Dear Old Mom from the same era: same woman! Cue that screechy scary noise from the movie Psycho!

Rick probably won’t admit it, but I can safely say both of us have been scarred for life. Anyway, that was the same reaction to seeing Nancy Grace’s nip slip. Now she claims there wasn’t any such incident, but screen caps don’t lie!

Speaking of people we see on TV that I don’t like: when is Sarah Palin going to shut the fuck up? Not seriously, she’s too entertaining and I just wanted to use the phrase “shut the fuck up.” Momma Grizzly continues to stoke the fires of her dwindling base, which is just a small part of the Teabagger base, getting the faithful to hope and rekindle hope she will throw her hunter’s cap into the Republican presidential race.

“Please Sarah, Please! We’re suckling at your Momma Grizzly teat! We gave you money to think about running! Please, oh please, run for president!”

So, Madame Grizzly gets on FOXNews, with Greta Van Susteren, to explain why she wasn’t rushing to join the clusterfuck to the White House. Skip the realities like a large majority of Republicans think she is unfit to be president, or that to do so means getting off her gravy train, although she nearly admitting as much. Her reason? It would shackle her to a title! “I’m a maverick, I go rogue when I need to.”

Palin doesn’t want to be tied to what political handlers tell her to say and do (and wear), she wants to be free! FREE! To be who she is: a media whore cashing in on her 15 minutes of fame, which to be honest, has lasted a lot longer than 15 minutes. And I don’t blame her! Get another million Madame Grizzley!

The funniest part of the interview though is when she said she was “out there” finding solutions to the nation’s problems. What solution for any problem has she come up with? She’s parroted a lot of Republican talking points and come up with cutesy terms like “Momma Grizzlies,” but what solutions has she put forth?
 To her credit, Palin is correct about one thing: she is out there!

Oh, here’s one. He family was woefully Middle Class on her salary as a governor and her hubby’s salary as a … I’m not sure he even had a career, other than riding snowmobiles. So, Momma Grizzley’s solution: quit her job as Alaska’s governor and start making millions of dollars as a highly paid speaker, pundit and author, stoking her fans’ fantasy that she will run for president, just to keep the gravy train — her Super Pac — rolling.

You know, after watching and more distressingly, listening to her for the past two years, she’s no longer fuckable. Okay, get offended by that, but truly, every guy who has made positive comments about Sarah Palin has always made reference to her appearance — in other words, she was “fuckable,” or, if you want to be less vulgar: “Do-able.” When she first hit the scene even her political opposites made snide comments about her being do-able.

Not any more. She opened her yapper, becoming a celebrity in the process. And although she is entertaining, the yappy lapdog sounding voice is so annoying, the horror of the fantasy-turned-nightmare is of waking up next to her the next morning, as she starts yapping about something she has absolutely no knowledge of, like American History. Which is probably why retired NBA star Glen Rice only had a one-night stand with her. That, or she was dating or even married to Todd Palin at the time.

Oh wait, she and Todd eloped about seven months before their first child was born and the tryst with Rice happened about a month before that. So, we’ll assume Glen Rice just couldn’t get past that voice.
 Ever the gentleman, Rice admitted spending “some time” with Sarah Heath (Palin’s maiden name), but didn’t divulge the naughty details. He said Palin was a nice woman.

But enough about Sarah Palin. She isn’t running for president in 2012 or any other year and neither is New Jersey governor Chris Christie. At least not in 2012. He still wants to be the governor and feels he owes it to the people who voted for him to serve a full term. In his press conference Tuesday, October 4, 2011, Christie even admitted he agreed with President Obama on some issues. Sounds like a somewhat principled guy, even if most of his principles are opposed to mine.

So I’ll close with this: Howard Fineman, once a columnist and political reporter for Newsweek and now the same for HuffPo (The Huffington Post) coined a new term last week, one that had me rolling with laughter when he said it on Hardball: while talking about Rupert Murdoch’s publishing empire Fineman called it “Murdochistan.” Okay, I thought it was funny at the time.

Okay, one last thing: businessman Herman Cain leads the polls in the Republican clusterfuck to the White House! He actually shares the lead with Mit Romney, but still, who would have thought! And I guess we can thank Rick Perry’s hunting lodge in Texas — and that’s a whole new line of thought, so I’ll stop now.

Today in History

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 09:38:00 -0600

Today is Friday, September 30, 2011. Not a whole lot different from September 30, 2010, or most of the preceding years. It might be as anonymous and forgotten a day as ever. Although for me, it does bear some social significance, although in the grand scheme of things, well, it’s big for me. More on that later.

You see there have been some notable events that took place on September 30. For instance, historically, this day usually marks the end of the regular baseball season and this year, the Milwaukee Brewers — MY Milwaukee Brewers — won the National League Central Pennant!

They better win the World Series this time. If they don’t, well I may finally become a Padres fan. Do your remember how they lost the series to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1982? Effin’ Brewers …

Back to September 30th. Thomas Edison’s first hydroelectric power generator went on line in 1882 and get this: it wasn’t in New York, or even on the East Coast. It was on the Fox River in Central Wisconsin, Appleton to be exact. The owners of that power company beat New York City to the punch.

It’s a long story on how that came about, but just chalk it up to boys with their toys and who has the biggest … ummm … ego. That’s all beside the point really. The amazing fact here is that electricity was already being harnessed in 1882. My grasp of the minutiae of history is demonstrably weak; people had been monkeying around with electricity for years and just five years before the generator in Wisconsin went live, Edison had invented the first practical incandescent light bulb. He wasn’t the inventor of the light bulb. I’m not even gonna look to see who owns that honor.

In a related topic: the Hoover Dam, another hydroelectric generator, was dedicated in 1935. That construction project was one of the big infrastructure improvements that helped pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression.

What else has taken place on this day in history? In 1927 Babe Ruth became the first player to hit 60 homeruns in a season, a record that stood undisturbed until Roger Maris, also of the New York Yankees, hit 61 in 1961. Ruth did for baseball what Michael Jordan did for basketball: he changed the game. The Babe ushered in power hitting, a part of baseball we take for granted and every winning team must have. You got that Brew Crew?

This is a big one. Hearts were broken and tears flowed like rivers in the spring melt on this day in 1955. Actor and teen heartthrob James Dean died in an auto accident driving a race-ready Porsche 550 Spyder. Dean had decided, at the last moment, to drive his Spyder to the road race in Salinas instead of towing it. The intersection of highways 41 and 46 where he died outside of Cholame, CA has been christened the James Dean Memorial Junction.

Twenty-seven years ago today … do you remember September 30, 1984? Pitcher Michael Witt of the California Angels pitched a perfect game, becoming only the 11th person to do so in the majors. The Texas Rangers were the victims of his arm.

The number one movie at the box office was All of Me. Sheesh, I barely remember it. As I recall and Box Office confirms, it’s a body swap story in which the spirit of Lily Tomlin invades Steve Martin’s body. It’s a forgettable movie, directed by Rob Reiner.

Ghost Busters was #5 and Purple Rain was #6. I still like watching the Ghost Busters movies. Rumor is they’re making another one. I wonder if the Ghost Hunters, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, will make a cameo?

And who can forget Apollonia Kotero in Purple Rain? Arguably the best reason to see the movie! Well, Morris Day and the Time were pretty good too, but really, seeing Apollonia!

“Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince was the number one song on September 30, 1984. In my rarely humble opinion, the best song to come from the album and movie, Purple Rain.

Ronald Reagan was president and on his way to winning a second term in a landslide against Walter Mondale. Just for my Republican friends who worship at the altar of Reagan: he raised taxes in all but one year of his presidency.

Also on this day in 1984, I started my clean and sober life. Since then I’ve done and seen things that had only been fantasies in drunken stupors. One thing I’ve learned over the years: most “big deals” tend to fade from memory after a while. Whatever was driving us to near insanity yesterday is nothing more than an after thought today.

Of course I remember my family and friends, all of them: Cheryl, Mary Lou (MLou), Rick, Tony and Ken. Then there’s my brother Carl who I lived with for so many years. He put up with a lot of shit in those years, but we also managed to have a good time too. The Grand Canyon and cruising up the coast of California on Highway 1. And then there was the one weekend in Vegas! We actually had many weekends in Vegas, but this one stands out!

And my Dear Sweet Sister Elaine. How I miss her today. Used to be I’d call or text her, or she would call or text me, just to mark this day. Last night I had gone to sleep with this unfinished, but woke up 90 minutes later, after a dream in which I was first pedaling the Trusty Trek over some rough terrain and then at her bedside as she was dying. I miss her. The old saying goes: “This too shall pass,” but not my love for Little Lainey.

Today I humbly thank all my family and friends who have been with me on this journey: Dan, John, Liz, Rudy (thanks for the phone call this morning Liz!), Terri, Julie, Diana, Mike, Mikey, Paul, Bill, Alan, Jerry, Keith, Vicki, Cat, Tom, Rachel, Phil, Tony, another John, another Alan, Brian, Norm, Rick, Claudia — and even you Eric! D’OH! A shout out to Eric. Pat and Oscar’s tonight! To those I missed mentioning, my apologies.

Thank you everyone! As Joe Walsh once sang: “Life’s been good to me so far.” Have a blessed and fortunate Friday and weekend!

Do Unto Others

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:01:00 -0600

Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll, sending the Republican Party into a tizzy, such a tizzy in fact, they couldn’t wait to have Texas governor Rick Perry enter the race. And so he did, on the same day as the Iowa Straw Poll, stealing Bachmann’s thunder and giving the Republican faithful — or at least the Teabagger faithful — a viable alternative to that Obamalite, Mit Romney.

That tough talking, Texas drawling, former Air Force pilot and perennial C student, Rick Perry. Everything you could want in an unimaginative, somewhat ignorant public servant and less! By golly, like his predecessor in the Texas State Governor’s Mansion, he could brag about his scholastic mediocrity and get applause doing it! “I finished in the top ten of my class! Of 13!”
 Kind of makes you wonder what kind of standards the military has for getting into flight school and then flying our most advanced aircraft.

Mit Romney: one-term governor of Massachusetts and former supporter of Roe-v-Wade, architect of the health care plan that became the federal Affordable Health Care Act and most recently, a convert to the ranks of the most ardent firearms advocates. Mit even went hunting, he claims.

What the Teabagger faithful see in him is a guy who will say anything and flip-flop on any position to get the nomination to be the Republican Party’s standard-bearer in the 2012 presidential elections. He ain’t one of them, regardless of what he says on the campaign trail.

You look at these other characters in the primaries; the one time Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, his entire campaign crew took a powder when they realized he wasn’t serious. Then there’s the other Mormon, John Huntsman. He was the governor of Utah and an ambassador to China. Speaks Chinese, can’t remember which dialect, but he could negotiate … well, there’s nothing to negotiate, but he can make the Chinese feel real welcome.

Then there’s the old man from Texas, Representative Ron Paul. The kids love him! He’s been against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the beginning and he’s for legalizing drugs, especially marijuana. But he’s one of these total libertarians. He wants to keep the health care system completely free market and if you don’t have health insurance, well, too bad. Die motherfucker!

And the new guy from New Mexico (I forget his name) he wants to legalize pot. But when you examine the rest of his ideas on federal government, he’s almost as crazy as any of the others. And talk about a lack of experience, he’s never held office of any kind until he ran for governor and served two terms; Gary Johnson, the handyman turned politician.

Then there is the Godfather pizza man who wants to use the Chilean Model for Social Security. He doesn’t want to tell Americans what it really is: privatizing the social safety net and turning everyone’s contributions into personal investment accounts in the stock market. It’s working so well for Chile … except that it isn’t. The World Bank, once a proponent of privatizing pensions like Social Security, says privatizing has cost Chile more than if they had just kept their Social Security system the way it was before privatization in 1981.

But Herman will deliver! He won the Florida Straw Poll!

And what about Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann? Well, Santorum wants to send a big “Fuck You” to all gays serving in the military (A gay soldier in Iraq was booed when his video was aired) and Michele Bachmann said what every Republican believes: they don’t want the federal government to be involved in the education of America’s children so she would get rid of the Department of Education — among others.

Teabaggers everywhere love Rick Perry for killing more people than any other candidate; at one debate he was wildly cheered for doing so. The Teabaggers went wild for Ron Paul’s inference that those people without health insurance should be left to die. “You take your chances,” he said.

Front runner Rick Perry took two big hits from the other candidates and the Teabagger faithful for A: mandating (with an opt out clause) girls get the vaccine for the HPVC virus, the one that causes cervical cancer, and B: giving children of illegal immigrants instate school tuition benefits if they have lived in Texas for more than three years — the Dream Act.

And then the Teabagger faithful booed that soldier serving in Iraq for being a homosexual. This is the Republican Party today: cold, heartless and mean. Some in the GOP will claim that’s not the Republican Party, but no high profile Republicans will rebuke any of the hatred spewed by the extremists, certainly none of the candidates for president, and in fact, all the candidates are playing to the worst of their party’s dark core.

The vast majority claim to be followers of Christ. That’s enough contradiction there. Although, in their defense, the Bible is quite vague about Jesus’s attitude towards the poor. His example of course was to be charitable to the poor. He stopped his travels to minister to a blind beggar, restoring his sight. Jesus said the beggar saved himself with his faith.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus is asked which of the Ten Commandments are most important and he answers: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matthew 22:37)

Love is the central theme of Jesus Christ’s message, but to listen to some of these so-called Christians in the Republican Party, that means to love the poor as they starve, love the uninsured as they die from curable illness, love the homeless as they sit shivering in the rain and love the condemned as the executioner pumps poison into their bodies.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m not a Christian, but the message of Jesus is undeniably the most virtuous, or at least as virtuous as any other. He tells us to help the poor, to share with those who are not as “blessed” materially, to turn the other cheek when we are insulted or injured; he admonishes the Pharisees when they want to humiliate and stone to death a woman who was accused of adultery: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (John 8:7)

But this crowd cheers death and killing, cheers the poor dying instead of getting health care, rebuking — loudly — the teachings of the person they profess to worship. They are bloodthirsty, selfish and self-centered and that appears to be the political philosophy of the Republican Party. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor wants to deny funding for FEMA unless funding for some other needed projects is cut. We’re not talking about hundreds of billions of dollars, more like 2-3 billion.

That will be the Republican philosophy competing for our votes come November 2012. Up against the philosophy of the president and his party who think the richest of our nation should pay as much in taxes (percentage-wise) as the Middle Class, that there should be no question about whether we help those devastated by natural disasters; that we shouldn’t celebrate killing others. That everyone is entitled to health care.

Stephen Colbert said it best: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

It’s About Time

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:01:00 -0600

Tuesday, September 20, 2011, marked the end of institutionalized discrimination in the U.S. Armed Forces. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was signed into law 18 years ago by President Bill Clinton and since then some 13,000 people have been drummed out of the military because of their sexual orientation. As of Tuesday, that is all over.

Before “DADT,” not only where homosexuals kicked out of the military, they were given an “Undesirable” discharge at best. The irony being that gays and lesbians have been serving in the military since the beginning of our nation. Until Tuesday, they’ve been doing it in secret.

It wasn’t always a big secret. For instance, I can think of two people I served with in the Marine Corps who all but admitted they were gay, in those drunken moments when the tongue was loose and the inhibitions looser. As buzzed as I may have been, their statements stopped my thoughts in their weaving paths.

There might have been other things they were trying to hide, but given the situations, it really pointed to them being homosexuals. Both did their jobs very well and neither had any disciplinary problems of note. In all respects, both were pretty good Marines.

Now, anyone with a desire to serve has the opportunity, provided they are physically capable. In the Marine Corps you still have to do the PFT — the Physical Fitness Test. That ain’t no joke. Gotta do at least three pull-ups and really, if you don’t do at least ten you’re gonna get some seriously concerned looks, then you have to do at least 40 sit-ups in two minutes, and really, if you don’t do at least 60 you’ll raise the Drill Instructors eyebrows, and then to finish off the test you have to complete a three mile run in less than 27 minutes and really, if you’re doing it in more than 24 minutes you’re in trouble.

There is an aggregate score you have to get and at the moment I can’t recall what it is, but that’s why we have the Internets. You get five points for each pull-up, up to 100 points, 1 point for each sit-up, up to 100, and one point for each ten seconds on the run, up to 100 for completing it in 18 minutes or less. A Third Class PFT, the minimum, is 135 points, a Second Class is 175 and the First Class is 225.

Getting a perfect score of 300 is pretty remarkable. I never did it; my best score was in the 260’s, which is still a respectable score. But that was in days of old when Marines were cold and Sailors were cabbies and toads. Today I couldn’t run a half-mile, a quarter-mile even and the sit-ups, maybe 40. As for pull-ups, maybe the minimum of three. But then, I’m probably stretching credulity here.
 One of the funnier things I’ve seen while a Marine: when we were doing the three mile run on our PFT test, some of the diehard smokers would light up and smoke while we were running. Ya gotta love the Marine Corps!

So, if a gay man or woman wants to be one of the few and the proud, as long as they can complete that physical fitness test, they are good to go, as long as they satisfy a few other little requirements. The first rule of being a Marine is this: every Marine is a rifleman first, regardless of Military Occupational Specialty — MOS.
 “What’s your MOS man?”
 “1341. What’s yours?”
 “0311.”
 “Dude!”

That short conversation happened a lot, especially before bar brawls, but that’s an entirely different topic … well, maybe not entirely different. Fighting is what Marines do and a lot of Marines, if not all Marines, are proud of their fighting prowess.

Once drunk of course we forget all that handy dandy hand-to-hand combat stuff we learned and just get down and dirty, throwing punches and wrestling each other around on the floor, although once I got hit in the back with a bar stool. It glanced off my noggin a bit, and then I was punched in the eye, it was all a mess and a couple of us ended up at sick bay the next morning, but it was all good — eventually.

Anyway, every Marine is a rifleman first so to become a Marine you have to qualify with the M-16. In my day it was the M-16A1. I have no idea what it is these days, but that’s why we have the Internets. Take a pause for the cause while we cue the Google.

It’s the M-16A4. Then there is the M-4A1, which is another version of the M-16, just much more cinematic looking.

Getting back to the topic: If a gay man or woman wishes to become a Marine, they need to successfully complete that PFT and then qualify with the M-16. As I recall, the minimum score you need is 190 out of a possible 250. I always shot expert, 216 or higher, and my best was an astounding 247.

Here’s the back-story behind that near perfect 247 (out of 250): When it comes time to make your annual qualification on the M-16 you get a week off from your regular duties. Sounds good! But, you have to report to the rifle range at like six fuckin’ A.M.! And it’s a serious offense if you’re late. At the very least, it looks really bad in your service record, which is what the military uses to recommend or deny promotions.

Anyway, it’s five days, Monday through Friday and all the shooters show up at six fuckin’ A.M. The first three days are instruction and practice and to be honest, if you’ve qualified in the past there’s a certain amount of fuckin’ around that takes place.
 “With loaded weapons?”
 “Yeah. What could go wrong?”
 “What kind of fucking around?”
 “Like on this particular occasion, the Gunnery Sergeant next to me on the firing line taking a shot at a Border Patrol plane flying over head. We were in Yuma, AZ. The Range Officer was not amused.”

The last two days are given over to qualification and you can get a total of four tries at qualifying. So, on the eve of the first day of qualification I was out with the boys, tying yet another one on and to make it really special, I had taken a good hit of LSD.

So, at six fuckin’ A.M., with no sleep, I arrived at the Rifle Range primed and ready to have a loaded weapon in my hands; in other words I was still a bit drunk and tripping. There are four positions to shoot from and three distances: 200, 300 and 500 meters, in four different positions: standing, kneeling, sitting and (at 500 meters) prone. A total of 50 rounds being fired.

A shooter can score a 5-0 with each shot, five being the bull’s-eye and a point off for each concentric circle around it. Or zero if you miss entirely. So, on this day I shot bulls eyes with all but three of the rounds, hitting “fours” with the other three.

The gunny next to me suggested I just start shooting at planes and birds and things once I had hit 216, the level needed for the expert qualification, which was about the time he took the shot at the Border Patrol. The gunny explained the plane wasn’t supposed to be there as it was a distraction and … anyway, alls well that ends well.

So I shot my 247 — tripping on LSD. Ya gotta love the Marine Corps! Just a short tangent: a few years ago the Marine Corps added a second, “combat” phase to the rifle qualification so it’s completely different.

Getting back to the premise of this little trip down memory lane, it’s about time the military let homosexuals serve openly. Anyone who has ever served will tell you they are certain they served with gays, although back in the day they really stayed in the closet. Since this debate really picked up steam, military personnel have been talking openly about gays in their units, especially combat troops where esprit de corps is the strongest.

Most, if not all, troops forget about things like sexuality when the shit hits the fan because life depends on that esprit de corps.

All but one of the Joint Chiefs agreed with the repeal of DADT, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Amos, being the lone objection. Fuckin’ Marines; always gotta be different. Within five years it won’t even be a topic of conversation. But for now, it’s the biggest change in the military since President Truman ended racial segregation in 1948.

Welcome to the 21st Century America.

The Wages of Boredom

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 08:30:00 -0600

Boredom. That about sums up life right about now. I’ve been plugging away at this little screed for four days now, feeling oh so close to finishing with each swipe at the keyboard.

Boredom, born in the incubator of isolation and the crushing weight of failure. Sometimes it feels good to isolate from the rest of humanity, but most of the time, not so much.

All summer this malaise has engulfed my days. No one likes to be around people feeling sorry for themselves, so when around other people I put on the happy face. And if the question is, “How are you?” Then the mental battle is what to say in reply.

“I’m really fuckin’ okay! What’s it to you?”

Eh, that doesn’t really work because most of the people asking are friends and loved ones and you don’t really want to alienate them. Plus, should you say something like that to a loved one especially, their response is invariably, “Aw, what’s wrong?”

Oh jeez, I don’t want to talk about it! Once you start talking about what’s bothering you — me, in this case — it gets whiney and with a lot of stuff, whining about it doesn’t make it better! Then that embarrassed feeling begins to crawl across the skull because now you’ve just opened up your vulnerabilities and “let someone in!”

Okay, here’s a tangent, as if tangents are a foreign substance in this space. When did that bit if dialogue become dialogue in TV and movie scripts? “Why won’t let me in,” the girl cries to her stoic male companion, usually her lover.

In where? Our heads? Listen sweetheart, you really don’t want to go there. Trust me. The joke is men are thinking about two things 98% of the time: food and pussy and visa versa. I was about to say that’s not really true, but in reality, that’s a fairly close approximation. That other 2%, that’s the scary shit.

We’ve watched way too many action movies, memorizing far too many one-liners from Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis to be settled souls with thoughts of peace and tranquility fluttering through our brains. We’re thinking about killing some dipshit we encountered online, or a crazy driver who ignored the red light and the walk light to make a right turn, almost running me over in the process. WTF!

And then we’re back to thinking about pussy and food, or visa versa. Ladies, if you wanna get in, come show up in an outfit like the one Erin is wearing. And while you’re at it, could you bring me a pizza and bottle of Diet Coke?

So, what to do about the boredom? Go out for a walk, seriously, or a bike ride. “That’s exercise!” Yeah, but it gets the endorphins going and if you really want to improve your health and take your mind off the blues, start doing homebound exercise like push-ups and crunches.

Just a few minutes ago I finished some push-ups and crunches and all of a sudden I couldn’t get up off the floor due to the muscle spasms in my abs. And these are some awesome abs. Too bad they’re hidden by too much fat.

But that’s just a small fraction of the day. What else is there? Most people have jobs of course, taking up anywhere from eight to ten hours a day, sometimes more. We hope most employees devote most of their thought time to their jobs while on the clock, especially in jobs like doctor, lawyer, police or firefighter, stuff that we the public rely on in times of need. Especially lawyers, but that’s a tangent for another day.

If you should have a job like … oh … telemarketing, or even “customer service” for a company that cleverly skirts the line between legal and otherwise while remaining completely immoral and unethical, thinking about other things for eight to ten hours a day is quite understandable, encouraged even, because god knows, ripping people off requires flights from reality.
 Doing the “right” thing at these jobs will only result in your termination and trying to find a new, more fulfilling job is far easier said than done.

But let’s say you’re a slacking scalawag like me, not working a real job that requires you to be in an office not your own for eight to ten hours a day. You could dial into any number of social networking sites and websites that have membership forums that allow you to talk about anything under the sun, including which Playboy Playmate in 2011 will become the 2012 Playmate of the Year.

 Just for the record, I’m pulling for Miss July, Jessa Lynn Hinton, but really, how could any of the other 11 not be qualified? And technically, we still haven’t seen Misses November and December, although there are guys who have already scoped them out on a variety of different sites … eh, trust me, there are fanatics who already know who they are.
 Yeah, I know. “Pulling” is a euphemism for self-gratification.

So, you talk about anything under the sun with people from around the world you don’t really know, getting into arguments and threatening certain death or at least vile verbal denunciation through the relatively anonymous universal forum known as the World Wide Web. You can be the baddest motherfucker on the WWW — but there’s always that possibility you’ll have to back up those tough guy posts when some knob you only know as “MrBator” shows up at your favorite beach looking for a fight.

That in itself could be fun, if you have a penchant for throwing punches and are in a chronic bad mood. Heaven knows the last time I threw a punch it put a smile on my face! But then it was tempered with the reality that the next time the return punch might actually hurt.

Back to boredom. So, you’ve done all that, had your exercise, spent some time doing something productive, like writing, spent a couple hours on the social networking sites and got into some forums trading quips and insults, all with the television blaring your favorite news programs. Or maybe you’re into the Law and Order: SVU marathon happening on the USA network.

Every half hour, without fail, you see this ad for some thing, a guy actually, who claims to have predicted every financial disaster since Bill Clinton shot his load all over Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress. Sick bastard!

There’s a website you have to get on and watch a video. Well, after months and months of seeing the commercial, I finally clicked on NewAmerica5.com. No need to watch it, unless you have nothing better to do for the next hour. Seriously, this video is an hour long with rather primitive graphics and so scary that by the end, you’re ready to start dishing out money to the guy in charge, convicted felon, Porter Stansberry.

“What was he convicted of,” you ask? Stock fraud. Stansberry was ordered to pay restitution and a fine of 1.5 million dollars.

Five minutes into the video you know Stansberry is on the far right of the political spectrum when he condemns government and regulations—and slams President Obama, claiming he’s bringing on European-style Socialism. We wish, Porter.

He easily blends a few truths with his political ideology, coming up with a solution only he can solve for you for the right price. He says everyone in the financial services industry agrees with him, even George Soros, the notorious left wing financier who backs every socialist cause in the world!
 Here’s the thing I never get about this belief that Soros is some kind of latter day Bolshevik. He’s one of the most successful Wall Street investors and hedge fund managers of all time, hardly the resume of a Socialist.

God bless Stansberry! He’s out there making a buck using the age-old tactic of appealing to your fears. He gets you to fork over almost a hundred bucks in order to hear or read the end of his plan — which is, basically, buying more gold and silver! Especially silver!

Is he a fraud? I don’t know … no more so than FOXNews. They pedal the same nonsense about the end of the world if Barack Obama isn’t removed from office. Unlike the Koch Brothers and their mouthpieces at FOX (and elsewhere,) Stansberry is making money off our irrational fears. Well, directly. FOX makes their money from advertising and Cable/satellite subscriptions, but this is interesting: on the local FOX affiliate during a football game, they had minutes of dead space where normally we’d find a beer commercial with scantily clad young women.

But that’s just another tangent. Here’s the kicker: boredom took me to that online video. Man, how sad is that? I let life get so boring it ended with me watching an hour-long video from a right wing nut who claims the world is going to end and we all better invest in precious metals.

Now it’s 4 a.m. Sunday Morning, finally time to go to bed. This isn’t the best thing ever presented here, but this is all there is today.

Remembrance

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 09:11:00 -0600

September 11, 2011. Just an average day by any standard. In Southern California it means that the morning sky is overcast with the “Marine Layer,” that bank of clouds formed over the Pacific Ocean and drifting inland making the morning gray and drab.

Ten years ago on this morning, September 11, 2001, the East Coast had a bright sunny day, the kind of day that makes you want to skip out of school or work and spend it outside being light-hearted and capricious. A day you’d want to spend with friends or a lover.

Here on the West Coast I was spending it with a friend, putting mailing labels on newsletters for a service organization. Being a news junkie, the TV was on to one of the news channels, CNN as I recall.

Before that friend arrived however, while pouring coffee, having a bowl of cereal and getting the folded newsletters ready to be labeled, I noticed what was happening on the TV, live from Lower Manhattan: smoke was billowing from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

Everything stopped in that little condominium as the melee of what can loosely be called news (it more resembled televised mayhem) unfolded across the screen. We were under attack from terrorists. Shortly after I began watching, a third plane hit the Pentagon and then there were split screens from Washington, DC and New York City.

Then video began coming into the two news channels, CNN and MSNBC, shot earlier in the day, when the two planes hit the Twin Towers, the first one at 8:46 a.m. and the second at 9:03 a.m., Eastern Time.

That was about the time I called Carl, who had left for his job minutes before I woke up. He asked me to record some of it since he would not be home for at least eight hours.

The TV in the condo I shared with my brother was on about 30 minutes after the second plane hit, but it was still very fresh for everyone. Information — accurate information — was scarce, so flipping from one channel to another became the non-stop activity.

Then the broadcasts went live once again, as the first tower collapsed and then about 20 minutes later the second tower. By this time one side of the Pentagon was on fire, having been a target for one of the planes.

Where was the president, vice president, cabinet members and members of Congress? All of that was getting sorted out, in the way only live TV could: with conflicting reports. Both houses of Congress were in session, quickly adjourned once the gravity of the day was known. The president was in Florida to promote the “No Child Left Behind” bill, reading a story to young children. The Vice President might have been in his office, but soon we were told he was in an undisclosed location.

He had to be, we didn’t know how many more planes had been hijacked. Every flight over North America was immediately grounded and every plane on its way to our shores was turned away. Every plane but one, United Flight 93, from Newark, NJ to San Francisco, CA. It had turned around over Lake Erie and began its flight to the nation’s capital.

United 93 didn’t make it to its target because the passengers, connected by cell phones to their friends and families, knew what was about to happen if they did nothing. So they did something, knowing that the odds of survival were so slight it couldn’t be described in realistic terms.

Although the passengers of Flight 93 didn’t gain control of that plane, they forced the hijackers to crash in an empty, almost forgotten strip mine outside of Shanksville, PA.

As I sit writing this, the ceremony for the unveiling of the Flight 93 Memorial in that now bucolic field is taking place. Speakers included two former presidents, George W. Bush and William J Clinton. Speaking now is Vice President Joe Biden.

It was a stirring memorial. All three had deep emotion in their words, but none more so than George W. Bush, the sitting president on the day of the attacks.

Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky read two poems, “Souvenir of the Ancient World” by Carlos Drummond de Andrade and “Incantation” by Czeslaw Milosz, moving pieces, one of memories of beautiful moments passed and the other en homage to the invincible spirit of truth and justice.

Then Pinsky recited the names of the 40 average, yet heroic, passengers of Flight 93 as rescue workers who were in that field 10 years ago rang the bells once for each name, including an unborn child.

The pictures of those 40 individuals were displayed one at a time on the screen as Sarah McClachlan sang her song, “I Will Remember You.” And then one more time as the ceremony ended, when McClachlan sang another of her songs, “Angel.”

Earlier in the day, former president George W. Bush, along with Vice President Biden and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, joined Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta at a special memorial at the site of the attack on the Pentagon, starting this weekend of remembrance.

So, what happens now, ten years and two ongoing wars later? The leader of Al Qa’ida is dead, along with thousands of his companions and the mastermind of 9/11 is stuffed away in a military prison.

We remember that national tragedy and hope we have done enough to prevent it from happening again. Right now we have word that there are three members of Al Qa’ida looking to strike either New York City or Washington, DC with truck bombs. It’s deemed a credible threat. We will know by the end of the day whether our protectors were successful in thwarting it.

Most likely, an ordinary citizen, like the 40 who took on the hijackers of United Flight 93, will see something out of place and report it. New York and Washington are big metro areas, too big to be completely protected. It will take not just law enforcement, but ordinary citizens.

There’s nothing else to say really, other than 2,752 dead on that day and thousands more as a result. But, as a reminder of who we are as a nation, the best of America was also on display that day, with individual acts of courage so numerous, you couldn’t write about a few without slighting the memory of the hundreds of others.

There are thousands of heroes wearing uniforms, or wore uniforms when they selflessly gave themselves so others could survive, but among our American heroes are the average folks without uniforms, but uniform in their willingness to risk their lives so others can go on living. Like the passengers and crew of United Flight 93 and Cyril Richard "Rick" Rescorla, the security chief for Morgan-Stanley-Dean Ritter on September 11, 2001.

Rescorla anticipated the attacks on the World Trade Center and started fire/escape drills for his company that eventually saved over 2,500 lives that day. After WTC1 was hit, Rescorla ignored the building managers who were telling everyone to stay put, and started evacuating the people in his offices. Before he and the last few could get out, the second plane hit WTC2. Almost ironically, Rescorla survived the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang, during the Vietnam War. It’s the battle written about in the book, We Were Soldiers Once … And Young that eventually became a movie.

There were thousand of heroes that day and whether or not they wore uniforms doesn’t really matter. Without intention or expectation of reward, they did what needed to be done and many of those heroes gave their Last Full Measure of Devotion doing so. To paraphrase another American icon: “Uncommon Bravery was a Common Virtue.”

So we remember them and all those who died September 11, 2001.

Be More Snarky

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 12:01:00 -0600

It’s not often I actually read a San Diego Reader and I often wonder if anyone else actually reads it, other than the author, a couple editors and possibly a few disinterested staffers with nothing better to do than read the weekly publication that pays them a meager wage.

The ads are always interesting of course, if you have penchant for looking at HOT women in skimpy bikinis hawking everything from weight loss programs to breast augmentation: “The perfect body you’ve always wanted.”

I’m all for women getting their breasts augmented, if that’s what they want to do. It’s hard going through life feeling “less than” about anything, especially women who are judged so thoroughly and harshly about their physical appearance.

Men too, but not nearly as much or as harshly. A man with material means or even just a good sense of humor can make up for a lot, or little, as the case may be. Not so women. Their looks, first and foremost, are how they are judged. That’s a reality, right or wrong. It’s how the cosmetic and fashion industries are able to get away with so much year after year, nay, season after season.

So, if a woman wants to get bigger boobs from the doctor in the ad on page 34 of The Reader, by all means, do so. And if a woman has accepted her natural breasts, well that’s great too. A woman’s breasts are lovely things to hold, big or small.

Here’s something funny about men and tits. Besides man-tits. I belong to an online forum for fans of Playboy, in print and online. People of all sorts, many of them dirty old men, frequent the forums, looking for love in this exactingly wrong place. Many of them like to make snarky comments about the men who get friendly with the models, which is one of the main, if not the main, attraction of being a member of this online community: “meeting” the women we lust after, if only in an electronic, I’m only touching myself sort of way.

Here’s the funny thing that’s related to breasts and breast augmentation: there are cadres of men who vociferously rail against women getting implants. The lamentation can be so melodramatic it’s absolutely entertaining! Better than daytime soaps. “She’s ruined!” That one always makes me chuckle at least. It’s also used when someone laments tattoos and different body piercings — even in the bellybutton, which I’ve always considered attractive.

Sometimes we’ll read some poor lost soul mournfully relay his sad disappointment about a nude woman with breast implants featured on the site: “At least she didn’t totally ruin herself by getting tattoos.” I feel your pain brother. Doctors have pills to arrest that feeling of impending doom.

But it’s funny because some of these very same men beating the drum against women with breast implants appearing nude on a website like Playboy.com will jump in the air and do virtual cartwheels when a woman with large “natural” breasts becomes a Playboy model, especially a Playmate. One guy even considers it an “achievement.” Really?

It’s like saying Paris Hilton has achieved greatness simply by being born a Hilton. Everyone knows her great achievement was becoming a public figure by doing absolutely nothing but look pretty in front of all the right cameras — and appearing in a self-made sex tape. That girl knows Dick and I’m not talking about Clark.
 Oh, I almost forgot that Carl’s, JR drippy cheeseburger ad! HOT DAMN! I almost started going to Carl’s, Jr. after that!

On one hand these guys decry women with breast augmentation, but on the other declare women with big breasts to be the best. So, what’s a woman to do, if she’s looking to be a part of the modeling world? Hell, if she just wants to be noticed in her little part of the world?

Everybody knows men across the spectrum prefer big breasts on women, especially men who pay for magazines and websites like Playboy and Penthouse, not to mention Twistys, Hustler and a multitude of other sites that feature adult entertainment.
 Did you ever wonder why simple nudity is considered “adult” entertainment? Apart from the religious issues, there really doesn’t appear to be any logical reason.

So, as long as the world prefers women to have big breasts there will always be a need for plastic surgeons who can deliver salvation in a silicone or saline implant.

After all that I just remembered this wasn’t intended to be about women and breasts. The initial subject was actually reading the San Diego Reader.

But a few more things about the ads. Because of the cover story, I’ll presume, there were a lot of ads for various treatments for mental diseases, like schizophrenia. Then of course there are the ads for medical marijuana and a first, for me anyway, an ad that asked, “Are you smoking too much pot?”

For the past 30 years I’ve known a person can smoke too much pot. I did for years! But the old myth about marijuana is it isn’t addictive or harmful to one’s health. Two complete falsehoods that the legalize marijuana crowd hangs its argument on in its campaigns. Pot should be legal for the same reason alcohol is legal: an adult should have the right to choose what he or she consumes, be it 4,000 calorie meals at fast food establishments, tobacco products, a quart of whisky or an ounce of pot a day. Clearly, the War on Drugs isn’t working, so it’s time to legalize all of them.

After nearly 20 years of living in San Diego I can’t remember reading a cover story, from beginning to end more than twice Maybe three times, but that’s just a wildly liberal guess. My memory ain’t what it used to be and after nearly 20 years, there might be some that caught my attention at the time, but like most other things, faded from memory.

Shortly after first arriving in San Diego in June, 1992, someone suggested I try writing for that publication. So I looked into it first thing. I even ran into a writer who was often published in The Reader. Can’t remember his name now, but he lived somewhere close to Balboa Park and as it turns out, he was taking more prescriptions for mood disorders than I knew existed.

So, I wrote some reviews of CD’s that had been recently released — this was before downloading and streaming young’uns — and sent them off via snail mail (this was before readily available e-mail) confident in my mission to become a writer extraordinaire living in the comfortable confines of Southern California. Sort of like a screenwriter, but without all the angst.

Well, them fuckers rejected it saying it wasn’t quite their “style,” which had to be more about the writer and less about the band and music. “Be more snarky,” I was told. Apparently being “snarky” is a compliment for some people.
 “Snarky,” as defined by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: 1: crotchety, snappish
 2: sarcastic, impertinent, or irreverent in tone or manner

But you know, I can relate. Shortly after moving here, my oldest brother Carl, may he rest in peace, once said to me, “You are the most arrogant prick I’ve ever met!” Wow! I was so complimented! That was an accomplishment to be proud of, hands down! I couldn’t understand why, when I told people about that, laughing and proud of myself, they just looked at me like I’m weird.

It wasn’t until years later that I began to understand being an arrogant prick wasn’t an achievement one should be proud of. Pride, the ancient saying goes (somewhat), leads the Seven Deadly Sins for a reason. I think there are only five, maybe six, deadly sins, but that’s for another day.

Fast forward about 18 years and here we are in 2011 and The Reader, not quite as thick as in years past, is still finding its way into my now old and cold sweaty hands. I don’t really read it, as much as scan a few of the articles, maybe read a page of the cover article and mostly check out the ads for the live music clubs, what’s left of them, to see if any interesting bands are playing. And there are a few.

The writing can be really boring to be honest. There’s only so much “snarky” one can take and if every writer is writing as if they’re the best thing to ever hit the literary establishment writing about whatever extremely small niche they are into — eh, who gives a fuck. If you, as a reader, continually don’t get the steady stream of inside jokes — and most potential readers don’t — it’s just another boring exposé of the writer’s otherwise dreary life. Sort of like reading this blog from time-to-time.

So, today, while at the local Vons I picked up a copy of the most recent Reader and looked at the interesting cover. “I’m Here to Save You From Protestant Hell” it said in a picture of a Willy Wonka-looking fellow with a big smile on his face in front of a river of chocolate.

Hmmm, an article about saving someone from a Christian religion, that sounds promising! Well, as any good headline will do, this one barely touched the deeper subject of the story: a young woman’s journey through life in a broken family with a drug-addicted schizophrenic father who eventually abandoned her to that Protestant Hell.

There won’t be any details of the story, written by Brianna Van Ness, divulged here. You ought to read it yourself, but it was the first cover story in The Reader to capture my attention for the entire story since … shit, can’t even remember that last time. That’s all a cover story need do anyway is capture the attention of the reader for that moment. If it gets remembered beyond that, well so much the better.

The question I ask myself now is this: is my writing snarky and self-indulgent enough to make it into The Reader? I’d have to write about 10,000 words, which is easy enough. I can string along enough bullshit to fill the cover story space of The Reader. Anyone can do that and often enough that newsweekly proves it. But can I find a subject substantive enough to be interesting to more than just my small circle of friends? Of course!

But, what the editors might not like are freewheeling tangents and anyone who has made any effort at reading this blog over the years knows tangents are my thing. Hell, this particular blog is one big tangent. Originally it was to be about a bureaucratic hell I’ve been dealing with all summer. Now that’s put off for another day!

Hell, I’m not even getting the ads by Google anymore so this is truly a labor of love. Google Adsense dropped me for an as yet unnamed offense. Probably the hotlinks to the hot chicks sans clothing. Who knows. But now it’s time to think about writing something for The Reader. I’m finally over the resentment of being snubbed all those years ago. And I’ve become pretty darn snarky too!

Brokedown Palace

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:01:00 -0600

How many different ways have you seen “Moammar Gadhafi'” spelled? There have been three; of course FOX News has their own spelling for Arabic words and names. They even call themselves “fair and balanced.” But that’s beside the point.

Hell, the spelling of his name isn’t even the point.
 “WHAT’S THE POINT!”
 “The point is we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.”
 Okay, only the Friends of Bill will get the joke.

Well, above it’s spelled as we find it on CNN and other sites, but the New York Times spells the dictator’s name this: Muammar el-Gaddafi. Which is easier to spell? Here’s the deciding criterion: which does MS Word recognize? Ah! The New York Times, the newspaper of record, wins!

As most people know, Gaddafi has been removed from power and is on the run. The rebels, once a rag-tag gang that couldn’t shoot straight, is searching every door and every rat hole in Libya for the former dictator and his family. Judging from how Gaddafi’s supporters are being treated, I’d say the Gaddafi family will be brutally murdered and put on display as trophies: every man, woman and child that has any connection to Gaddafi.

If Gaddafi and the men of his family have any sense, or compassion and mercy, they will have put their families on a boat to … on a boat to … hmmm … hard to think of any country that would harbor the family of Muammar el-Gaddafi. Venezuela, he could send them to Venezuela! Hugo Chavez likes Gaddafi.

The old dictator has enough money to buy freedom and life for his family, despite the sanctions and restrictions and Hugo Chavez would do it just to piss off the U.S. government. And all those right wing extremists who look for anything to blame on President Obama.

Here’s the fascinating thing about Gaddafi: he had a huge stash of porn — gay porn! But he appeared to be heterosexual. He had those women bodyguards and a thing for Condoleezza Rice! The rebels found Gaddafi’s homage to our former Secretary of State, a photo album. Who knows what else they found that our media might be too embarrassed to report. Or maybe, they want to save Rice any further embarrassment.

Seven years ago the Bush Administration began normalizing relations with Gaddafi and five years ago Rice met with the brutal dictator in Tripoli; everyone shaking hands and smiling. There was a Congressional delegation as well that included several Republican members of Congress and then Senator Barack Obama.

Those crazed right-wingers like to circulate that photo when talking about the fall of Gaddafi — but they conveniently forget to mention how and why Obama was in Tripoli. As usual, it was all about the oil. Europe and China had their hooks into the Libyan government for oil and our government leaders wanted our slice of the big gooey pie.

Which reminds me: remember back in 2002-03 when the neo-cons pulling Bush’s strings said with absolute certainty all of Iraq’s oil would pay for the war we started in that country? Of course they also said we would be in and out of Iraq in five months. Here it is eight and a half years later and we’re still pulling troops out of Iraq.

Had President Obama did what Bush did, what crazy fools like Senator McCain advocated, sending ground troops into Libya, we would be looking at years of involvement and who knows how many American troops killed or wounded. Again.

Thankfully, President Obama only committed air power to a no-fly zone slash let’s help the rebels intervention. We lost one drone. It was a really expensive drone, all tricked out with all the latest electronics, but no Americans injured or killed.

But of course Republicans aren’t giving President Obama any credit; they say Obama didn’t commit enough U.S. force to the effort and it dragged on longer than it should have.

What Republicans don’t want to admit is that President Obama is far more successful “war” president than Bush. He’s ending the two wars Bush started, he got Usama bin Laden, no thanks to the Bush Administration, and now he’s successfully navigated the hairy road of rebellion in Libya without getting any U.S. troops involved on the ground — although I’m willing to bet there are some special operators in Libya, sort of helping things along, teaching the gang that couldn’t shoot straight how to shoot straight.

Republicans don’t want to give President Obama any credit for anything because, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has stated many times, their number one goal is to make Barack Obama a one-term president.

Not the economy — no. Not jobs — no. Definitely not the environment or health care — no. Ousting President Obama is their top priority. But that’s a rant for another day.

What we have to wonder about is what will Libya look like in the coming years, three, four and five years from now. Some non-partisan foreign policy analysts said that the transitional government (loosely defined) in Libya is looking to be pro-Western, but that is not settled by any means. All one has to do is look at what’s happening in Egypt to see how things can change.

One of the first things Egypt did when the government of Hosni Mubarek was toppled was forbid women from having any meaningful involvement in governing. Then of course there is the spectacle of Mubarek being put on trial. The guy is in court on a gurney.

Here’s the thing about these rebels in Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. They think like they’re still in the 12th Century. They get into a battle with Gaddafi and his forces in Tripoli, Libya’s capital if you weren’t aware. And what do they do once they drive the dictator out? They start trashing the place, stealing weapons and ammunition along with everything else that can be pried off the walls, leaving the compound unlivable.

From the description of Gaddafi’s last stronghold, it was a well-built place and could have served any new regime well. Yeah, there was definitely opulence beyond opulence and that could have been sold with the proceeds going to pay costs or help those in need — and Libya has a lot of people in need — but instead, they destroy it.

Granted, a lot of the damage is from NATO bombing, but the endless celebratory firing of weapons, shooting at buildings for no other reason than impromptu target practice and the wanton brutality of people deemed to be supporters of Gaddafi — it just doesn’t give me a lot of hope for Libya’s future.

Vengeance is the name of the game in many parts of the world, not just the Middle East and we certainly engage in it here — the death penalty. There’s no other reason for it, except to exact vengeance.

 “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” — Romans 12:19
 Most of the people, if not all of the people, who favor the death penalty claim to be Christians. I guess their religious beliefs stop at Death Row.

But I could be too cynical and harsh. The people are exuberant about the dictator being gone. Many Libyans have never lived without Gaddafi as their supreme leader. Changing 42 years of one of the ugliest dictatorships won’t be easy and isn’t going to come over night. It will no doubt be developing for decades to come. Our democracy is still developing 235 years later.

So, maybe it’s time to let go of the yoke of cynicism and have a little faith and good cheer, at least for a little while. In just a few hours the worst hurricane to hit in decades will be drenching friends on the East Coast. Our response to Irene will be the true measure of our national character. We’ll see the national character of Libya in the months and years to come.

Reciting the Canon

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:41:00 -0600

Some years ago I remember watching a news program, an hour special actually, in which a woman reporter was doing a story on a Madrassah in Southeast Asia. Try as I might, I just can’t find it on the Internet. I can’t remember which country was in the piece, but it was close to India. Doesn’t matter all that much at the moment.

The reporter followed one young boy in particular as he went from his home to the school and then on to his studies. Or study. The primary subject being the Koran. According to the young boy and his adult handlers, he read only from the Koran so all of his language skills were built on and around that one book. We can assume there might have been some study in mathematics, or at least arithmetic.

What struck me was how resolute the young boy was about how the Koran was the infallible word of God and only the truest believers of Islam were promised the glory of Heaven. The other moment from the broadcast that stands out was when the TV crew accompanied the young boy to a beach, a really nice beach at that and the little boy pronounced all the women not wearing abayet and Nijab as sinners who would be going to Hell.

This was my thought at the part when they were on the beach: “What a waste of a beach.” It just didn’t seem right that a beach that nice wasn’t filled with bikini-clad women.

Ironically, Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, is said to have some of the finest beaches in the world and Westerners flock to them by the thousands. They’ve been hit by the economic crisis as well so the travel prices might be really good right about now. But no sex allowed on the beaches!
 If you saw the second Sex and the City movie (or maybe the third?), you know how that can turn out!

Back to the madrassahs. The big focus on them of course has been their perceived ties to terror organizations. When you hear someone in the U.S. mention the schools, it is invariably about how a particular madrassah or group of madrassahs are being used to foment jihadi fervor and recruit young jihadists, schooling them from a young age to be martyrs.

Some people might be surprised to learn not all madrassahs preach and teach Jihadist philosophy. In fact, the word “madrassah” is Arabic for “school” and really isn’t as sinister as we’ve been led to believe. And there are madrassahs for girls as well, although that’s a secret in the Muslim countries that do allow girls to get an education.

What brought that program out of the depths of my memory was the viral video going around of a pint-sized Christian preacher of about four years of age, Kanon Tipton. He stomps around, waving his arms and shouting into a microphone, just like his daddy and granddaddy before him. His language is barely understandable and adults can be heard off camera prompting the little kid on what to say, so it isn’t exactly spiritually inspired.

People call it a gift. Really, preaching is a gift? I call it good showmanship because really, all little Kanon is doing is mimicking his daddy. And you know, little junior mimicking Daddy is pretty cute, it doesn’t matter — most of the time — what it is the child is mimicking.

But, what some of the adults in the room, pick a room, have to say about it is quite disturbing. On the Today program, when the little boy and his parents, Damon and Kandi, were interviewed, Savannah Guthrie called what the little boy was doing a “gift.” Why? Because video of little Kanon preaching became a Youtube sensation?

Yeah, people responded by the millions, but people do that, especially in this country, when kids are declared “precocious” and do cute things for the cameras. Youtube is filled with young children being precocious doing all manner of things. Some years back a famous comedian and comedic actor got in trouble for the precocious child in his short videos.

Will Ferrell and his landlady Pearl. The little girl, about 3 years old, comes to his door and starts yelling at Ferrell, using expletives like “bitch” and “asshole” and says she needs the rent money to get her drink on. She takes her beer, looks likes like a Hiney, and walks off. The videos are on Funny or Die and well, Ferrell should die because they aren’t funny, but, the little girl is precocious! Or so you would think.

But, the child doing adult things that are considered “blue,” well, that’s just not the sort of things we approve of with kids and gosh darnit, if it can’t make it on to America’s Funniest Home Videos, it just isn’t acceptable.

Why is it that the videos featuring small children always win on AFP? It could be a small child kicking some man in the nuts, the crowd roars with laughter, some kid dancing and acting to an otherwise adult-themed song, the crowd applauds with approval; and no matter how good the other videos may be, the kid always wins. Because, in America, it’s all about the children!
 Can we get a collective “aaawww”?

Especially if it’s toddlers doing some adult things — like mimicking Daddy the Pentecostal preacher! Kanon is no longer a toddler, he’s preschool age, but he’s still an internet sensation, so much so he and his parents get interviewed by the #1 morning news program in the world.

Mimicking Daddy isn’t a gift; it’s often funny and almost always heartwarming to see small children mimicking their parents, but some sort of anointment from God? I don’t think so, but then I don’t believe in the “God” espoused by Kanon’s religion. Or any god for that matter.

And this gets back to the connection I saw between the kids being indoctrinated into Islam and little Kanon and all the other small children mimicking adult preachers. Oh yeah, Kanon isn’t first or only child to do this and he’s no longer the youngest. He’s the cute one so he gets all the attention. Just look it up on Youtube and you’ll see a bunch of children wiping the sweat from their brows, doing the little hopping dances, arm raised in the air, microphone in hand, pounding the podiums, exhorting the assembled congregations to come to Jesus!

Here it is, the 21st Century, and we’re celebrating ancient mythologies that deny reality. In fact, we have a leading contender for the presidency who believes evolution and climate change are not real. And we have these small children being programmed to be not just Christians, but to be preachers.
 Hell, even our current president went from being an atheist to a Christian. But, at least he accepts science. Just wish he’d reverse the decision to wind down the space program. But that’s a different rant.

But there is hope! I’m reminded of Marjoe Gortner, the one-time child preacher turned actor and entertainer. It was the groundbreaking, Oscar-winning documentary about Gortner that brought him to the public’s attention. Called Gortner, it detailed the business of being a preacher and what a scam it had become, if indeed being a revivalist had ever been anything other than fraud.

Like the Tiptons, Gortner was brought up in the Pentecostal religion and like Kanon, Marjoe was declared a preacher at the age of four, at the time, billed as the youngest ordained minister in the world.

But since Gortner came to prominence in the 1970’s religion has made a revival in America. Reagan, sucking up to the Religious Right for their votes, gave that movement its impetus. Despite the excesses of the 1960’s and 70’s, a movement to a secular America was the right direction: less regulation of our personal lives, equality for all, especially women and gays, I actually felt some pride in wearing the uniform for such a society.
 It was hard to have pride after watching the colors being lowered for the last time over the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. There is and will always be a little bitterness over that.

We can only hope the revival of religion in America is over, that we will begin to follow the lead of our European allies in rejecting the mythologies of the distant past. But, videos of small children mimicking their preacher parents is bothersome at least, not cute. Troubling because there is this small minority of people who believe little Kanon and his contemporaries are getting their inspiration from a god. And they will use these children to push their oppressive agendas on the rest of us.

It’s a lot more than just kids being cute in front the cameras. Maybe Will Ferrell and his landlady Pearl aren’t so bad.

Break Out Year

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 08:01:00 -0600

Facebook — isn’t that the thing these days? Used to be MySpace, except that most family members didn’t mess around with that; it had too much of a “young” vibe and if you ain’t young, or at least deluding yourself, then it just doesn’t have any appeal. I got on MySpace in 2005, then that profile was deleted so I started another. It’s still there, but hasn’t been visited in days. It’s all Facebook now.

Before even MySpace, my brother Tony, a computer whiz, created the Forkes Exchange, a website just for our family. Man! We had fun with that! There’s gotta be nearly 10,000 photos posted on it, between its two phases.

It’s kept “active” because it’s tied to this blog, but no one posts anything on it any more, which is kind of sad. It’s our own little island in the vast ocean of the Internet.
 Family, I would suggest downloading the photos you want to keep because one day that site will be gone.

Just had this thought, and I’m not mad at my brother Tony. Had we been thinking, we could have turned that into a social media site and instead of that Harvard kid being the billionaire, we could be the billionaires! Wow, what a missed opportunity, Tony-wan Kenobi.

Facebook, that’s the place to be on the Internets these days. The entire family it turns out is represented on Facebook. We keep in touch through it, share photos and do all the stuff that was once reserved for snail-mail letters. Remember back in the day when we got pictures developed we would try and think of how many copies of each photo we would need and to whom they would be sent? It’s probably been seven years since I’ve used a film camera. Can’t even remember where it is anymore.

So, once a day, at least, we will get on and check all the posts in the “News Feed.” There are a lot of models in my friends list or in my “Like” file and they often have … err … interesting posts. But then there are the posts of my friends and family.

Some of my friends post the most abhorrent political rants and I’m learning to let them pass, although sometimes I forget the tried and true axiom, “Nothing pays off like restrain of tongue and pen.” In this case, keyboard.

Most of the posts though, range from “not of interest” to humorous and interesting. My dearly loved niece doing her two-week stint in the Navy Reserve: You go girl! You are my hero!

Then there are the bromides — well, maybe not bromides. They might not exactly be trite, but the posts are common clichés. The thing about clichés is, they are always based on basic truths. And that’s probably why we find them so bothersome: they point to one or more of our shortcomings

Those types of posts have taken the place of chain e-mails somewhat. The thing is, with Facebook your standard posts can’t be longer than 500 words so they are limited. Hence we still get the chain e-mails.

But today my lovely sister MLou posted something interesting; “My Year” and then she posted about 500 words on the year 1967. At the end she added, “If you ‘Like’ my status, your year is 1970.”

All right! I got right to work! 1970 was a great year so off my fingers went to write about 1970. That’s when I bumped into that 500-word limit. So, here is that post, in all its uninterrupted glory:

That was the year I started going to rock concerts a lot. Before then it was mainly with an adult and they were few and far between. Saw Frank Zappa and the Mothers, my first experience with the “Freaks.” That was at the Milwaukee Auditorium, as I recall. A couple years earlier a friend turned me onto the Mothers of Invention with the album, We’re Only In It For the Money. That was a groundbreaking album and my first Zappa concert was a life-changing experience.

Then there was the Beach Boys at the Performing Arts Center. It was the best tour of their career, right before the album Surf's Up was released. I have the live album from the tour and it’s one of my favorite recordings. They concentrated on songs from Smile, Pet Sounds, Sunflower and Surf’s Up, the latter a collaboration with Van Dyke Parks. They did songs like “The Trader” and “Sail On Sailor” along with their surf hits. Including my favorite, “California Girls.”
 What bothers me about the album is that it doesn’t have a live recording of the song “Surf’s Up” or “Student Demonstration Time.” Great songs on the album, great songs live — but not on the live album.
 Smile had never been released and some of the songs on Surf’s Up had actually been written for Smile. A few years ago Brian Wilson released it, reworked of course, as a solo album.

The band was filled out too, with professional sidemen; a drummer whose name escapes me, and guitarist Blondie Chaplain and another bass player. Bruce Johnston was playing keyboards and singing.

Great concert, one of my most memorable. After that the Beach Boys began turning into a nostalgia act so I stopped going to see them.

Also that year there was the James Gang at the Milwaukee Arena, the last tour with Joe Walsh. That concert really stands out for a variety of reasons, most significantly how the James Gang started their set. Joe Walsh came out and delivered a scorching guitar solo for about 15 minutes before it slid into their biggest hit, “Funk #49.” Since then, Joe Walsh has killed it in every concert of his I’ve seen. They guy should be on everyone’s list of top ten guitar slingers.

John Mayall and the Blues Breakers were on the bill and that was a rare treat. No, none of the famous guys were in the band: Eric Clapton, Jimmie Page or Jeff Beck, but it was great to hear this band that had shepherded the British Invasion into existence back when the Beatles were first starting to get famous. I can’t remember who the opening band was, but I remember liking them a lot.

My friend Dave and I went to see Sly and the Family Stone at Summerfest. The band was so late getting on stage a riot nearly broke out. Plus, they only played about 45 minutes, a big disappointment. If I’m not mistaken, we also saw Santana that year at Summerfest, Maybe it was the next year. Things are kind of blurry after 1970, and not because of the aging process.

Music wasn’t the only thing going on in my life at the time, but it was the most important part of life.

Along with the concerts there was that weekend visiting my brother Carl and his new wife Pat (now Allida) in Madtown. Just so happens my visit coincided with the HUGE anti-war demonstrations at the University, my first experience with tear gas.

It was a great year, my entry into the adult world. I was breaking away from parental bonds, feeling independent and doing things a kid that age ought not be doing. I had a regular dealer who had pot every weekend and buying liquor was rather easy. Those habits eventually took me down, but I recovered nicely.

The Vietnam War was still raging, Richard M. Nixon was president, The Beatles broke up and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died. That was a shock, hearing the news that Jimi Hendrix was dead. He had played the Milwaukee Arena on May 1st. Oddly enough, I was in Madison that weekend and missed the concert and the next at the Dane County Coliseum. Missed opportunities. Hendrix would be 68 years old had he lived.

Despite the low points, 1970 was my “Break Out” year, the kind of year people make movies about when they want to tell the story of their youth. The kind of year everyone has, when we feel like we have finally arrived. But that just meant the journey had only started.

That’s the beauty of life, I guess: it’s a journey with no destination. We just get to pause now and then and slow down, take some time to appreciate the rich pageant. Life’s too beautiful to do otherwise.

4 a.m. Attention Span

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:01:00 -0600

There’s no reasonable explanation for why I wake up at 4 a.m., other than I usually gotta empty the bladder. But then, once that little task is over, I’m wide-awake. Often, the TV will be on, usually the channel with Craig Ferguson’s show, I don’t even know the network. Sometimes I fall asleep even earlier. How do I know? Comedy Central is on.

There’s a watered-down episode of Entourage, followed by a stand-up show, the comedian marginally funny. I don’t know, maybe I’m just not hip, but audiences don’t laugh at comedians anymore, they applaud the funny bits, or more accurately, the bits intended to be funny.

Here’s how you can tell most stand-up isn’t as funny as it used to be: watch The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report right after. If you have even a marginal sense of humor, you’ll be laughing out loud the entire hour.

Not just you either. The studio audiences are laughing their assses off too. In fact, Stewart and Colbert are so funny they can’t keep from laughing themselves. That’s actually funnier with Colbert because he’s trying to play it straight.
 Seriously, Stephen Colbert may be the funniest, most insightful comedian ever on television. On occasion, his satire skips the humor and goes directly to the point and that’s when he is at his best.

If you’re not watching that hour on Comedy Central every night, well, four nights a week, you’re missing the funniest and most accurate portrayal of the news on TV. I seriously jones on the weekend at 11 p.m., Friday through Sunday. I needs me some Stewart and Colbert. Comedy Central should replay both programs throughout the weekend, just to keep us diehard fans happy.

God knows most of the movies they play aren’t funny. I mean, seriously, does anyone really laugh at the Police Academy movies? And then there are those movies with the cheesy soundtracks trying to sound like Beverly Hills Cop, but don’t. They just sound cheesy.

The only other consistently funny programming on Comedy Central are the roasts. Remember when “The Situation,” Michael Sorrentino. tried being funny on the roast of Donald Trump? Just watching The Situation bomb was funny.

The funniest roast of Donald Trump didn’t take place that night. No, that happened during the White House Correspondents Dinner when Seth Myers and President Obama took Trump to school. It was the time when Trump was the frontrunner in the Republican primer to the primaries, going on and on about President Obama’s birth certificate.

At that moment, we thought the best part of that roasting was watching Trump, who was in the audience, fuming at the president and Meyer. Turns out, the best thing about the president’s weekend was that he was overseeing the eventual demise of Usama bin Laden.

While the president was roasting Trump and his fateful decisions on Celebrity Apprentice, members of Seal Team Sic were getting ready to enter Pakistan to kill the most wanted terrorist in the world. The exclamation point came the next night, Sunday, when President Obama delivered the message that bin Laden was dead.
 To all the people who insist President Bush was responsible for the raid that killed bin Laden: had the Bush Administration actually been instrumental in bin Laden’s death, he would have been killed when Bush was president.
 Bush failed.

Getting back to last night and this (early) morning, I now have a fix on when I fell asleep. It was during Colbert’s bit, “Yahweh or No Way.” Although, now that I remember it, I was fading in and out because I vaguely remember some guy, the guest, talking about a website that would put a candidate on the 2012 presidential ballot through the Internet.

So anyway, “Yahweh Or No Way” was pretty funny. Colbert skewers everyone overly concerned about Romney being a Mormon. Let’s face it, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is no goofier than any other Christian sect. Just because the other ones have been around a lot longer doesn’t make them any more credible.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

With the Entourage episode ending, Johnny Drama is being hung upside down from a hotel balcony, next on was a stand up comic special. Can’t remember the comic’s name, but the audience wasn’t laughing as much as it was clapping. Eh. So I changed the channel.

Now most of what’s on at that hour of the morning are infomercials and Morning Joe on MSNBC. Oh yeah, and that funny trio on FOX News with Steve Doocy and the blondie with the perpetual “Deer in the Headlights” look in her eyes, Gretchen Carlson. She used to be a reporter for ABC News. She and Doocy, one of her co-anchors, were made for each other.

I’m not watching either one. On FOX Dr. Marc Seigel bashes Medicaid and the people who use it because they use it for wellness reasons, not just when they are sick. And, Medicaid covers dental and eye care as well!

So, on some channel (don’t know which) there’s an infomercial for a male enhancement supplement. What catches my attention about this infomercial isn’t the product, Extamax, it’s the spokeswoman promoting it: Dr. Victoria Zdrok. “Well who’s that,” you might be asking?

She really is a doctor of sorts, as she holds doctorates in Juris Prudence and clinical psychology with a post doctorate qualification in sex therapy. Both doctorates before she was 25 and the sex therapy thing not long after. She’s also written several books about sex and hooking up, all of which have had some success. She ain’t your average dumb blonde, if such a stereotype really exists.

Dr. Z, as she is known, first came to prominence in 1994 when she was named Playboy’s Miss October 1994. Oh yeah! Now we’re talking! Then she went into some porn movies, presumably after getting her doctorates, and became a celebrity sex therapist, becoming a Penthouse Pet of the Month and Pet of the Year along the way, all before the age of 30.

You might be wondering why a woman with all of that education in “respectable” occupations like the law and psychology would resort to the sex business. I don’t wonder at all, she’s made millions and has had a great time making her fortune. She’s far more famous than your average Playmate or Pet.

Think about the truly famous Playmates over the years. None are more famous than Marilyn Monroe and Pam Anderson, but there are the other Playmates that appeared on the hit TV show, Baywatch, and Miss April 1997 Kelly Monaco, a star on the soap opera, General Hospital

There is a list of Playmates who have gone on to fame and some fortune, but most people wouldn’t recognize them, by name or face. Jenny McCarthy was famous for a while, as was Ana Nicole Smith. What a sad end for Smith. It’s too bad she will be remembered for that, more than anything else.

This is getting off track and far afield. I started looking up other Playmates with various levels of fame, remembering the one time I spoke to Donna D’Errico on the phone for business. She seemed pleased that I remembered her from the pages of Playboy and her days on Baywatch.

About two years ago I met a few Playmates at an event called GlamourCon, held twice a year, once in Chicago and again in Long Beach. In November 2009 it was held in Los Angeles at the Airport Hyatt, I think. Got my picture taken with two, Miss May 1998 Deanna Brooks and Miss February 2007 Heather Rene Smith.

My mind wanders, in very predictable directions, often at 4 a.m. in the morning. This morning at 4 a.m., I flipped through the TV dial and found this adult actress/personality Dr. Victoria Zdrok, pedaling a male enhancement product. Just seeing her cleavage enhances my male product. That’s where my heads were at this morning.

And Sports Center. Remember when ESPN was known for showing sports no one else ever paid any attention to? They had to because the network couldn’t get access to any of the major sports. Except for Sports Center.

Man! SC did a segment on the San Francisco 49ers. Apparently they have a great young QB and receiver, don’t know their names off the top of my head, but I noticed the ESPN reporter covering the story: Colleen Dominguez.

What can I say? It never shuts down, this preoccupation with sexy women. But, I’m guessing most, if not all, heterosexual men have the same preoccupation, just to varying degrees and honesty. America is too preoccupied with not being preoccupied with sex. I’m done trying to repress it in my life. hell, right now I’m watching Contessa Brewer on MSNBC having sinful thoughts. Later today Tamara Hall will be on the network. She’s always fun.

Okay, they deliver the news … okay, this is off track again. This entire bit of rambling was inspired by the appearance of Dr. Victoria Zdrok pitching a male enhancement product. Nuff said. Now I’m gonna look at her pictures for a while.

And I had planned on a follow-up to the Wisconsin recall elections. Enjoy your Thursday.

The Wisconsin Referendum

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:01:00 -0600

Today Wisconsin voters are getting the opportunity to take on Republican Governor Scott Walker’s anti-worker agenda as they recall six Republican state senators in a special election.

Wisconsin, home of Fightin’ Bob LaFollette and birthplace of the American Socialist Party (Janesville). Coincidentally, and not so parenthetically, Janesville is also the home of Congressman Paul Ryan — that Paul Ryan — the guy who introduced a budget bill that would have, if passed, ended Medicare.

On one hand Wisconsin is one of the most progressive states in the Union, having promoted workers rights and equality long before most other states.

On the other, it’s one of the most conservative on social issues. In fact, Milwaukee, WI is considered one of the most segregated cities in America — but most voters, historically, vote Democrat. Hell, from the beginning of the 20th Century until 1988 we had Socialist mayors, although at the end of his career, Mayor Meier sort of downplayed that Socialist angle.
 Sadly, it was a hotbed of “Reagan Democrats” in the 1980’s.

So, it is kind of a mixed up fuckin’ place, switching parties for governor and legislative control all too frequently in recent decades. In 1986 Wisconsin voters elected Tommy Thompson governor and man, did that raise a ruckus! At least for some of us. At the time there was a big battle brewing over control of the Northern third of the state, which is under control of the Ojibwa Nation. Two 19th Century treaties ceded control of that area’s natural resources to the Native Americans. Part of Tommy Thompson’s 1986 platform was to abrogate the treaties with the Indian nations.

In their culture, the Ojibwa spear fish for walleyed pike in the spring. All of a sudden White sportsman started protesting this, claiming the Indians were killing off all the fish, despite the fact that the Ojibwa took less than 50,000 fish a year while sports fishermen took around 800,000. White people were quite openly using all kinds of racial slurs in this years long struggle.

Then Tommy Thompson came to the governor’s mansion and tried to be conciliatory. Why, he’d give the Ojibwa $50,000,000 dollars to give up their control of the resources! Wow! What a deal!

As it turns out, the deal had little — if anything — to do with walleyed pike or any other fish. Wisconsin’s northern tier is loaded with vast reserves of mineral resources and a bunch of multinational energy and mineral companies wanted to get their drills and excavating equipment to work.

The two main groups battling the Ojibwa over fishing rights were Protect America’s Rights and Resources (PARR) and Stop Treaty Rights Abuse (STA). They organized violent protests against Indians at boat landings and other places and some of their members even fired shots at the Indians.

As it turns out, these anti-Indian groups were secretly funded by the mining and energy companies, in particular Kerr-McGee and Exxon, two companies looking to mine in Northern Wisconsin for things like uranium. Tommy Thompson, after winning the governorship, appointed the lead lobbyist for the mining industry, James Klauser, as the Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Administration. It was Klauser who took the lead for the State and the mining companies to break the Indian treaties.

Eventually the state lost all its battles and declared it would stop trying to overturn the 1982 Voigt Decision that affirmed the legality of the two treaties in question. Thompson and his masters in the mining industry lost.

The point is, 25 years ago we had a governor instigating violent opposition to the rights of Wisconsin’s indigenous people, through his proxies. One of the highlights of Thompson’s campaign against the Indians: Thompson appealed to the judge in the case to end the treaties to avoid any further violence against the Ojibwa. The judge thought it was ludicrous to punish the Ojibwa for the violence of the White people opposing them.

Now, 25 years after that reign of political terror by a Republican governor, Wisconsinites have yet another Republican governor who decided to strip unions of their rights to collective bargaining.

That was in February of this year and as soon as he announced it, Wisconsin’s public employees, from the state mechanics to the teachers, police and firefighters, descended upon the state capital by the hundreds of thousands to protest. Fourteen Democrat State Senators went into hiding so the State Senate couldn’t get a quorum, thereby preventing the legislature from passing Scott Walker’s budget that eliminated workers rights.

Walker and his Republican cronies in the legislature jiggered it around so a quorum wasn’t needed to pass the laws, prompting the “Wisconsin 14” to return, but that wasn’t the end of the fight.

The next course of action was to organize a recall. Now, by Wisconsin law Walker can’t be recalled because he hasn’t been in office for a year. But, some of his Republican cronies in the legislature could and that is what’s happening in Wisconsin today.

The battle has been contentious and between the two sides, over 40 million dollars have been poured into this recall election — seven times the amount spent on the state’s elections last year.

Walker and the Republicans have been supported by the Tea party gurus, the Koch Brothers. Besides pouring millions into the campaign, they have been shipping in Tea Party supporters by the busloads, not to mention, their dirty tricks. They went so far as to send absentee ballot applications to Democrat voters with a return address to their party’s office in Madison and a deadline of August 11 — two days after the special election.
 “It was just a typo.”

The violent rhetoric of the Right hasn’t subsided a bit. In fact, unlike Tommy Thompson who sent his underlings to connect his proxies with corporate money to do his bidding, the backers of Walker have engaged Democrats with some of those most violent language ever used in a political campaign.

Judson Phillips, Supreme Leader of the Tea Party Nation, said on Sunday liberals were responsible for over a billion deaths in the 20th Century. He also said he despised liberals. On Saturday he called those who oppose Governor Walker “Brown shirts,” equating the protestors to Adolph Hitler’s Storm Troopers.
 Phillips believes that only landowners should have the right to vote.

Not to be outdone, Ozaukee Patriot Tea Party leader Vince Schmuki called the Democrats terrorists, proclaiming Wisconsin to be “ground zero.”

“You remember what the term ground zero means? We have been attacked,” Schmuki said. “Tuesday is going to be the beginning of our takeover. And we’re going to follow it up the following week, and then we’re going to polish off the enemy in November 2012. Who’s with me?”

His fellow Americans are enemies?

Nineteen years ago I moved from the center of the political universe to the Left Coast of Southern California. What a culture shock. But that’s a whole different bag of worms that one day will be explored here. Right now though, as the referendum on Scott Walker unfolds, I’m feeling a little home sick.

Some of my friends, now connected through Facebook, have been marching on Madison for six months. I’ve felt envious. Seriously. Seeing a grass-roots movement rise up against a dictatorial Republican governor and challenge the power structure, that’s humbling and makes me proud to call Wisconsin my place of birth.

I just wish the winters weren’t so long and cold!