Because Some Of My Friends Really Are

Ben, over at Hammerswing has a good response to the latest act in Jeremiah Wright's minstrel show.

He sums up Jeremiah Wright's views rather succinctly:

"From what I can gather, Wright believes that whites and blacks are genetically different, musically different, educationally different and just plain everything different. And I want to note that he was saying that blacks are different, not deficient."

This is part of the problem, maybe the problem, of racial issues in America.
The message whites are getting from Negroes Blacks African Americans People of Color... oh hell, whatever it is these people want to be called these days is one of confusion.
First: Treat us the same.
No: Treat us different.
First: We're no different.
No: We are different.
First: You need to try to understand us.
No: You can't understand us.
First: Be nice to us.
No: We won't let you be nice to us.
First: We are just like you.
No: No we aren't.
First: Don't patronize us.
No: Treat us special.

It's not a double standard. It's a case of ever changing (non)standards to meet the needs of the latest demagogic blowhard du jour, and the crowd of ethnic sycophants who rally around their own.
A veritable circus of absurdity:

It's absurd to get all upset over a "nigger" remark, and then give awards and praises to 'artists' who can't say the word often enough.

It's absurd that a minister can blame whites for all of his people's ills, but whites are racist if they point out it's not white men fathering all those ghetto bastards.

It's absurd to blame white racism when black African immigrants are overwhelmingly successful and enter the economic mainstream. Of a 'white' America.

Something went wrong somewhere, and it wasn't with the white folk, when thousands of ((whatever these people want to call themselves now days)) marched for civil rights, dressed well, and put their best selves forward in advance of their cause to be accepted into mainstream society and now, the goal today, after achieving the goal of legal parity yesterday, is to be as belligerently in-yer-face as possible and shout down any criticism with the accusation of racism.
Sadly, too many whites bought into the bully tactics, and run and hide, and act all apologetic for fear of being remotely thought of as racist.

I stopped buying into that 'white guilt' crap a generation ago.
You see, I never held anybody down, never owned a slave, never sat in the front of a southern bus. And my family is from the North. Land of Lincoln, as a matter of fact. And what more, hail from, and founded, the most militantly pro-Union/anti-Confederacy city during the War of Northern Aggression.
My people gave their people Lincoln, and a war to free them.
You wanna talk reparations, and what not? Who owes what to whom for what reason?
They should be kissing my ass instead of attempting to shame me into kissing theirs.

That is, if I wanted to play their same shame game.
But I don't.
And I won't.
Niether of us was there.
I can no more take credit for abolition than they can demand my apology for slavery.

I will do as I've always done.
Treat everybody the same, according to their own behavior and attitudes toward me.
I reserve the right to pass my own judgements as evidence presents itself, as I expect you to do as well.
I reserve the right to make humor of any differences, as I expect you to do as well.

My word to most everybody, regardless of where your relatives came from: I treat you as you will treat me. Plain and simple. Don't lump me in with those who whipped your great-great-great-great grandfather, and I won't lump you in with those who beat Reginald Denny. Fair?

And my personal word to Jeremiah Wright, and those who think like him: you can find it in the illustration at the top of this post. You've earned it.

Battle Of The Bands:Not What You Thought They Were, Hard Rock

Haven't posted one of these, nor much of anything else for that matter, in a while.
Mr Dillitante has kinda grabbed that baton and run with it, doing a fairly decent job, I might add.
Now it's my turn again.

Today, we have two *similarish sounding bands fronted by powerful, dark sounding, vocalists.

From Seattle, and despite their own repeated denials,the first band was often confused with being part of the early 90's grunge movement. Anybody with an ear to actually hear with can tell you, this band is not grunge. It's classic-style hard rock.
But then again, and even these guys have to admit it: in a world where lots of great bands don't get signed, they can be thankful for the grunge frenzy that swept the industry, and along with it the over-the-top strategy to sign anything from Seattle, as every label attempted to be the first to discover the next Nirvana.

After catching lightening in a jar with the release of their first album, which was a great album, subsequent efforts just kinda didn't live up. And the last album just kinda sucked. I played it once,ho hum, and put it away. ('nuff of that,eh?)
The band split in 1999, and has since reformed with the original members and will be releasing a new album. It'll probably suck.
I love this band, and play their first album pretty regularly, but can't seem to recognize them as anything more than a 'one good album' act.

From Tallahassee, and again, despite their own repeated denials, our second entrant is not a Christian rock band. True, several of their songs evoked images of Christian spirituality, and they found a great following among spiritually minded listeners, but ministry was not their purpose.
That, plus alcohol abuse, and the fact the front man believed he was the reincarnation of Jim Morrison should have put any 'Christian' label to rest. But it still persisted.
After bursting on the scene in 1996, 'til their break up in 2004, they put out three great albums, a few controversies, and became the sound of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Many detractors fault them not for their music, but for the hypocrisy of not living up to their Christian image. An image they didn't foster, nor ask for.
Usually, these detractors are the same ones who were heartened to hear that Ozzie Osborn prayed to God for his wife's cancer recovery. Funny,ain't it?

OK, 'nuff said...
Live, from their appearances on the David Letterman Show...


Candlebox

vs.
Creed






It's a tough call. Leaning toward Creed, but only because ~three good albums~ trumps ~one awesome plus three mediocre albums~.

*similiarish: adj. very much the same,but not really so much, but kinda so; in a way that you really can't put your finger on,ya know?

Blogger

Has anybody else noticed that Word Verification has gotten more difficult the last few days?

Time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted.

88 Minutes

Seeing Al Pacino on the poster was all I needed to know.
Al stars as a Dr. Jack Gramm, a forensic psychiatrist who works for the FBI and as a college professor. Some years previous, he gave testimony that sent a serial murderer to death row.
On the day of the scheduled execution, Dr. Jack is stalked by a copycat killer, who gives him '88 minutes' to live.
Lots of twists and turns, a new suspect every minute, detailsdetailsdetails, as the movie tries to cram in as much 'thriller' elements as possible 'til it just gets tiresome.

A decent bit of entertainment, it's not too bad of a movie. I've seen worse. It's just that this one doesn't live up to it's potential. Pacino delivers a stellar performance,as usual, but his performance can only go so far.
Actually, the entire cast of attractive actresses was capable. Starring Leelee Sobieski,Alicia Witt,Leah Cairns, and a few other lookers. Another downside, now that I think of it: all these pleasant looking babes, and so little nudity. A little gratuitousness would have been appreciated.
Maybe a different director would have made the difference.

From The Comment Section

little cicero sums up my last topic:

This is perfectly consonant with Platonism. Happiness comes from understanding what is real (Forms) and what is not real and living life in reaction to reality rather than the false shadows of illusion and opinion. Essentially, Plato's ethics of ignoring were based on the Heracleitian-inspired metaphysics of recognizing bullshit, and it follows that, if only by accident, increased exposure to life will bring one more to the realization that most of what we are expected to live according to is bullshit.

Live Long, Be Happy

The older people got, the more likely they were to report being happy...

Here is a study I can get behind, although I don't think it was all that necessary to actually do a study on this.

Just from my own life, I can tell ya, age brings happiness.
It's not so much that you actually attain happiness, and I'm not saying that I have.
Or that one reaches some mythical goal that suddenly changes the world for them.
In my case, and I think with anybody else if they stop to think about it, you come to the realization that most of life's bullshit is just bullshit, and refuse to let it ruin your life anymore.

Movie Review: 10,000 B.C.

It's hard to take this one seriously. About some tribe of dread locked and dirty white folk who are attacked by a group of ass-ugly horse riding savages, who run off with vast quantities of the tribal folk as slaves.

Rising from among the tribal ranks, the bravest of the dirty dreadlock people sets out on a mission to track down the ass-ugly horse riding savages, in a heroic quest to reclaim his dirty dread locked woman from bondage.

Along the way, he and his small band of dirty dread locked homies encounter attacks from, among other things, the ass-ugly horse riding savages, a big-as-a-house wild cat, giant-sized mange-infected chickens, and a herd of snuffleupagus, not necessarily in that order, but by this point in the movie, it doesn't really matter any more.

Eventually, our hero befriends a mish mash of African tribes from the National Geographic Channel, unionises the labor force, and leads them to a climatic epic battle against the ass-ugly horse riding people, complete with rampaging snuffleupaguses to make it all that much better.

Of course, in the end he gets his prize: the dirty dread locked white girl, and accidentally saves all of dirty,unwashed, prehistoric mankind from slavery and pyramid building.

Or something like that.

Not A Bad Day,Really

So the aborted excursion was not a total loss. Highway 101 is probably the most variably scenic several hundred miles in the nation.
Going from dense city, to green hills, to coastal bluffs, mountain passes,valleys, vineyards, row crops, back to city again. It's not boring. Rarely straight, and when it is straight, it is not flat, and a full day's ride really is a full day's ride. And I hadn't even gotten to the forests north of Frisco before I aborted the mission.

The hardest part about leaving Los Angeles is the leaving. Seems this beast just grabs hold of you and won't let you escape without a fight. A two hour fight; and is the price I paid for the late start.




When I finally broke free, it was views such as this that made it all worthwhile.





Hwy 101 is also known as El Camino Real, an historical highway that linked the California mission settlements from Frisco on down to San Diego. It follows the same trail blazed by the Franciscans way back in the Spanish colony days. To celebrate this fact, the California highway czars decided to place these marker bells all along the route. They did a rather thorough job, one marker every mile or so. After about the first hundred miles these bells start to get old and tiresome. After about two hundred miles, I was wishing they'd replace some of them with pink flamingos or plastic sunflowers, just to lighten it up a bit and kill the monotony of it all.



You see some weird shit from the road. Just south of Gilroy(Garlic capital of world), I pulled over to check out this funky contraption (and to relieve a case of 'numb butt'). While stompin around I caught a five-foot gopher snake ...(cool!) ... and put it in a plastic bag.
Just then, I ran into a local. One of them Steve Irwin types, he was casing the fence line and we started chatting. Seems his intent was to find a hiding a spot for his truck that night, jump the fence in the pre-dawn hours, and hunt wild pigs. It was private ranch land, loaded with boar, and the huntin was a cakewalk.
(The central-coast of California has just about the best pig hunting you will find anywhere.)
"Just over that first hill, a small valley, and more pigs than you can count, living along the bottoms".
Says he poaches five or six a year from this spot, and since I wasn't doing anything important, invited me along. Really tempted. Had everything I needed with me, and been jonesing for a pig hunt for a long time.
I took his number. Maybe next time.
And I gave him my snake.

70's Music Quiz

I scored a Far Out
90% on theQuiz by SheGoddess: Lose Weight Fast

Picked this up from King David and Mr. Dillitante.

Scored better than I thought I would, considering there isn't much about the 70's that I even like.

Excursion,Interupted Pt 2

I had planned a road trip up the coast to Oregon to see the sights, relax a bit, escape the daily grind and to basically just forget about life for a few days. It's been a while, 'bout 18 months, since I last hit the open road and was eager for another one.
Things started slow, entertaining a surprise visitor Saturday afternoon (my son, who remembered he had a Dad he'd forgotten all about). OK, so that part was great. He stayed very late, and I was in no mood to rush him along. Expecting to hit the road in the wee hours,it was 9am by the time I drove out of the garage.

Cruising northward on Hwy 101, I was about 400 miles out, just an hour from Frisco, when the wife calls. (Cellphones are as much a curse as a blessing, and is why I avoid one, the exception being when I road travel).
Crisis looming at home.
You need me?
Yes. No.Maybe. I'll be Ok.Or not. I think. I'll let you know. No, don't turn around. I'll call you tonight, and let you know.

Needless to say, I turned around and headed back home.
I figured it was better to be near, just in case, instead of 1000 miles away.

Excursion,Interupted

Here's the story:
I left town for a few days.
I'm back already.
(yeah, you read that right)

Tired.
More later...

How Obama Views Typical White America

Image stolen from The Lumberjack.

Got some things to tend to this week, so as a result my presence will be light, if at all.

Tell ya all about it later.

Keep It Up

Mamie is up to 73 votes in less than 24 hrs.
Keep it up folks.
Keep voting.

Some lesser cat beings are already tallying in the thousands.

Tell ya what...
If we can get Mamie to the next round, I will send to everybody who wants one a signed(by her) photo of her.
How's that?
Something for your trouble and to show our gratitude.

10 votes a day is all we ask.

Cat Contest

Our local newspaper, The Orange County Register is hosting a "Best Looking Cat" contest. Being a man in possession of the world's awesomest cats, I couldn't resist partaking of this fool hardy endeavor.

As it goes, I have submitted a photo of my little girl, Mamie:




Your mission, dear readers, is to go the the site and vote often, vote daily, vote several times a day, every other 10 seconds or so, if need be.

Here's the site:Orange County Register

Click on the "That Darn Cat" banner.
Click the tab that says "Rate cat photos"
Where it says "Find your cat", use the drop-down menu to locate 'Mamie, in Anaheim'.
Rate Mamie, (a '10' is about right).
Click 'Save Your Vote'.

Please forgive the tedious instruction. It is against the rules to link the page on any website. And rules matter,ya know?
But, you can bookmark the "Cat" page so you can return repeatedly and vote for my cat, as I hope you all will.

Now, do it again after the page refreshes.
Repeat these steps as often as you like, which will be quite often, I'm sure, because friends just do crazy things like this for each other.

Vote Every Day.
Vote Often.
Vote Repeatedly.

I'm about 10 days behind, with only 8 days left. I'm a little late to the party, and need to play some major catching up. With your help, Mamie can make the Top 100, and go on to Round Two.

Winners are judged on a combination of total votes and total score. So, many,many votes counts just as much as score value.
Now, go make me proud.

The Working Lives Of Wives

We've got this latest study from another group of doing-nothing-of-significance researchers.Husbands create 7 hours of extra housework a week: study

Yeah, so what?
No mention that wives create several extra hours of paid labor a week for husbands.

My favorite part of this article is this gem:

women with more than three children spent 28 hours a week cleaning, cooking and washing.

That's all? 28 hrs?
I'm assuming the vast majority of these "wives with more than three children" are stay at home, non-labor force moms.
When the man is out working his 40hrs plus overtime, and taking care of the cars and the yard on weekends, and still willing to put his body and life on the line in the event of a burglary or home invasion?
Not a bad deal for the wife, if you ask my opinion.
All this, and some added long term health benefits as well.
LINK
(heh, don't blame me. I just link 'em)

I vividly remember my "stay at home days" when I was out of work for over a year, with a 2yr old and a 4 yr old. My wife was thrust into the role of breadwinner.
I kept an immaculate house, inside and outside, cooked all meals, did all the laundry,shopping,budgeting,mechanics,repairs, security, etc, you name it. And was still expected to perform 'maritally' 4-5 times a week. (OK, so that part was fun).

And I did it for love, without needing some social scientist (who likely has never had a productive job,anyway) whining about my lifestyle with a goofy-assed 'study' designed to sow divisions within the ages old social order.

If you've never raised a son, you'll never realise just how big of an asshole you used to be.

Charlton Heston

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot- racing "Ben-Hur" and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in movie epics of the '50s and '60s, has died. He was 84.

I'll remember him most as my president in The National Rifle Association. When the NRA was experiencing a slide in membership, Mr. Heston came along with his resonant voice, skilled speaking style and star power helping to boost membership to unprecedented levels.

It was this extra large membership roll that allowed us to better organise our media drives, raise money, and inform the citizens at election time. Gun-Rights issues have been credited with the defeat of Al Gore in 2000, allowing a right-leaning Supreme Court majority to finally take hold, a majority that is currently in the process of reaffirming the Second Amendment and the individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms after two generations of attacks and set-backs.

Thanks to the NRA, and Charlton Heston, some freedoms will still be with us, to be handed over to our children's children for safe keeping.

Rest in peace, Mr. Heston.
May God bless you, and hold you close.

It's All Going Too Far Today

Months before UCLA Medical Center caught staffers snooping in the medical records of pop star Britney Spears, '70s TV icon Farrah Fawcett learned that a hospital employee had surreptitiously gone through records of her cancer treatments there, documents and interviews show.

This celebrity news scooping is just too much at times. Sure, an argument can be made that they've asked for it, they got it coming, and many times even welcome it.
But some aspects of a celebrity's life, even more so for a washed up non A-lister, are sacred, and the celeb snooper in this case has crossed that line.

Thanks to the snooper, and a gossip rag, Farrah's son learned of his mother's cancer situation before she even had time to find an appropriate moment to tell him herself.
It's wrong. Just fucking wrong.

Since I am on the topic of Farrah:
I almost long for the days when the most sought after celebrity babes weren't baring their tits on a daily basis, or flashing their labia for paparazzi. It's cheap. You gotta leave something for the imagination after all, don't you think? Haven't these girls got mothers to teach them the powers of suggestion and subtly? Or overly-protective Dads who would be scandalized and shamed?


The number one selling pin-up poster of all time was brought to us by Farrah Fawcett. Back in her day this image was everywhere. The very meaning of 'ubiquitous'.
Farrah, in a one-piece bathing suit, showing nearly nothing. Tame by today's standards.
(click to embiggen)



She got big the old fashioned way: without acting like a two-bit skank whore.

Over Dinner...

MOM:Sorry if I'm old and I forget a lot.
Is your birthday the 4th or the 5th?

(long pause.)

ME: The 6th.

Margaret Sanger Would Be So Proud

Obama has stepped in it this time.
Speaking at a town hall meeting, and responding to a question about abortion,
(basically,about there being too many abortions), he had this to say:

When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby, or an STD at the age of 16."

Obama is supposedly a christian man and he supposedly believes in teaching morality and virtue and all that other good stuff, but he's got it all wrong in this case.
Education, though important to avoidance of HIV/AIDS, is not prevention, let alone the 'most important prevention'. Education is information. It cannot stand on it's own. It must be put into practice. The best prevention is abstinence. It's not that hard to see how abstinence can work. But apparently, it is hard for somebody like Obama to see how it works the best.

But the most disturbing aspect of these remarks is this tidbit: I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.

Good. Teach values and morals. But don't teach them that 'making a mistake' can be erased by another act that christians (and he claims to be one) generally would find abhorant and immoral, under the guise of teaching "values and morals". You teach morals and values by teaching consequences to improper actions. There are no mulligans in the sex department. You can't reverse HIV. You can't reverse pregnancy, either.
Many commentators are jib jabbing all about these remarks. They are appalled that Obama would refer to a baby as a 'punishment', as opposed to a blessing.
But these blabbering mouths are missing the mark.
What is truly disturbing, and appalling, is the fact that Obama has just publicly endorsed the snuffing out of his own grandchild.

It's one thing to hold abortion as a basic fundamental right, a position I am fully in disagreement with; but a whole another thing altogether to actually say you want your own inconvenient grandchild killed while proclaiming yourself a christian man of values and morals.

Sorry, little grandbaby. No hope allowed for you.

Four Days...

with nothing to say.
I feel so dumb.


But not dumb enough to pose for this photo from last weeks news.

Can't imagine what is more embarrassing: Being privately told to remove my nipple rings, or broadcasting to the world that I was told to remove my nipple rings while posing for this picture.