The Pure Investor Blog

Burma

2007-10-04T09:32:00.000-04:00

Kenji Nagai faced something too many people have had to do. Others are facing it now.

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Howard the Geek

2007-09-28T08:05:00.000-04:00

OK, I'm a geek. I love SciFi's Battlestar Galactica so doing this story was a nice treat.

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A Very Cool World

2007-09-17T17:26:00.000-04:00

Last night I caulked my tub. No big deal there. People have been doing it or something like it since the Roman baths. Mine's nothing fance - a shower/tub combo - with a necklace of shampoos, conditioners, and emoluments that the women in my life collect. But it's still pretty cool that hot and cold water are pumped up to my upstairs bathroom and I can cleanse myself daily in relative peace. It's been going on for years but I'm in the minority of the mass of people today who can do it.

One thing no roman ever did was install new USB 2.0 ports in their PCI slot and then put in a DVD burner with lightscribe. Very cool. I'm not confident in my technical abilities, but it got done with a minimal of swearing. Now I can back up everything to DVDs - including my old video via this new thing I bought.

The past is safe. Fewer memories will be lost. That's key with me.

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2007-09-13T17:20:00.000-04:00

I left the corporate world just about this time in 1999. I still think I've made the right decision if this article is true.

If you're a loyal employee like me, you occasionally check your company's Vision Statement to make sure all the T's in "empowerment" have been crossed, and the I's in "mission" have been dotted. But if you come across buzzwords like "excellence" and "leadership," you should know that your corporate culture is sadly behind the curve--those terms are as '90s as Reebok Pumps, Zima, and Total Quality Management. There's a new core value on the loose, and it goes by the name of "Fun."

Ug.

Shortly after I left that hierarchical world of mission statements and performance reviews that decided whether I would get a 3.5% increae in pay or a 4.1% increase in pay, I caught Office Space for the first time. It was reassuring. The Divine Mrs. M. bought the DVD.

But every once in a while, I yearn for the ability to hid amongst the group. To be cloaked by the herd. And then I read this piece.

Here's an abbreviated list of the jollity that will ensue at your place of business if you follow their advice: "joy lists," koosh balls, office-chair relay races, marshmallow fights, funny caption contests, job interviews conducted in Groucho glasses or pajamas, wacky Olympics, memos by Frisbee, voicemails in cartoon-character voices, rap songs to convey what's learned at leadership institutes, "breakathons," bunny teeth, and asking job prospects to bring show and tell items such as "a stuffed Tigger doll symbolizing the interviewee's energetic and upbeat attitude" or perhaps a "neon-pink mask and snorkel worn to demonstrate a sense of humor, self-deprecating nature, and sense of adventure."

I've said it before. I worked for MegaCorp for 6 years. I was on 5 different "teams" to decide on a mission statement. After those years, I have no idea how our economy beat out the Soviets.

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Howard Makes the News

2007-09-12T11:34:00.000-04:00

I made the news yesterday. Here's the link. I'm at the 1:00 mark. Man, the camera does add 10 lbs....and gray your hair...and make you squint. Oh, well. We did a good thing.

I conceived the idea of running the names in 2002. We've done it each year thereafter. On this side of town, people ask if we're going to do it again every year. I think I started a tradition.

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Monday Again

2007-09-10T17:19:00.000-04:00

I've been living by a mantra for a few weeks: Work hard, Be Strong, don't worry. It seems to be working - spottily.

Work Hard
It's Monday. Had a busy day. I've got too many articles to write tonight. A big deadline at the end of the week and several other pieces that I need to get done if I want to get paid. But I want to go hangout and watch the Bengals game. I'd also like to just plop down in front of the tv and do nothing or maybe even go to bed at 8. Owww, that sounds good....but I never do it. I never do.

Be Strong
Nothing much testing my strengh. Am I strong - mentally, emotionally. I don't know.

No Worries - haaaa haaaa haaaa. I'm designed to worry, but I've kept it to a minimum.

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Baseball Game

2007-09-07T15:21:00.000-04:00

My oldest daughter - now 10 - use to wear a Reds hat and sing a song she called "Baseball Game". The entire song was made up of the words "Base", "Ball" and "Game". Now the story embarrasses her.

I don't follow the game. I know when the win or have a home run, because my house is near enough to the stadium that we hear the fireworks they set off, but that's the extent of my knowledge.

We're going to the game tonight. Apparently the Reds are not favored to make the playoffs. Neither are the Brewers. It doesn't matter. The air is cool. The beer will be expensive but cold. We'll be with good friends and maybe - just maybe - I'll hear a chorus of "Baseball Game".

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Mean People Suck

2007-09-06T17:11:00.000-04:00

That was a button people wore in the early 90s. I thought it silly. Not after today.

I'm usually a pretty pleasant guy. But today, every single person I've spoken to - usually on the phone - has been mean to me.

Make it stop.

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Camel Towing

2007-08-31T09:05:00.001-04:00

Look, I'm no prude. I swear too much, make rude sexual innuendo to my wife too much. I like raunchy movies sometimes (Super Troopers made me blow a nice Shiraz out my nose).

I'm not to bothered by too much.

However, do we need to be crass everywhere?

Last night I'm driving down Queen City Avenue into the city when I stop at a light beside and slightly behind a tow truck. Here's their yellow pages listing. Camel Towing of Independence Kentucky. Get it? Just in case you don't get it, the company had it's motto stenciled across the back of the cab. It read: There's no tow like a Camel Tow.

Now some dude with the wherewithall and brains to operate a tow truck, probably finance it, and run a business decided "Yes, I'll name my company for the cleaving of female genitals by fabric....and I'll proudly display it".

Not that I'm a prude, but I don't really need the thought of Camel Towing in my head at 6 pm. I especially don't want to have to explain it to my too young daughters.

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Been Caught Stealing Kind of Day

2007-08-30T10:34:00.001-04:00

Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing" seems to be the soundtrack of my day today.

I'm feeling good - and when I feel good, I want a driving rhythm, thumping bass line and screamed lyrics.

That's just me.

I've got some energy...and I have to sit down in front of this computer for the next few hours. Then a few more hours. Then tonight I have a long meeting.

But it's my day...it's "mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine".

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Larry Craig: What if it wasn't a cop in the next stall?

2007-08-29T11:32:00.000-04:00

On thing I haven't heard talked about among all the He's gay, not gay, hypocrite, etc talk with Larry Craig is simple.

What if the cop in the next stall wasn't a cop?

Craig in on the appropriations committee. What if the cop was really a defense contractor. Or maybe a lobbiest or maybe an agent of China.

that's the real danger of Senators doing things like this. whether it's bathroom stalls or Vitter's hookers. Or Clinton's 22-year olds.

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Trying to Write

2007-08-17T13:32:00.000-04:00

I keep starting posts only to delete everything out. Everything I write sounds pretty lame so I delete it. Maybe the past few years have sounded pretty lame. Maybe I'm just going through a overly self critical time. I don't know.

Either way. Nothing I write here looks nice or original or interesting. It's all junk. Maybe a change is in order.

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Clevenger Hall

2007-08-13T15:27:00.000-04:00

One of the things I've been doing.

I'm full of sentiment...or is it sentimentality...lately.

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Still Nothing Here

2007-08-09T15:49:00.001-04:00

I was really into blogging for quite a while. Now I have no ambition. I still have thoughts that shot through my head that I think would make a good blog post, but I never seem to click my blogger link and do a brain dump.

Partly because I've been busy at work. Business - from all points - have picked up quite a bit, but something just flipped inside my head and I'm just not interested. I want to be interested. I really do, but there's no fire, there's no spark to blog. Maybe it'll show up tonight.

I'm building a personal website. Slowly learning html and realizing I have no design talent. daughter one is giving it a 9-year old try here. My 6-year old wants this changed.

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Website Woes

2007-07-25T15:35:00.000-04:00

I had a nifty little website for my writing business but when I contacted the folks I had the hosting through, it had gone belly up. After some phone calls, I found out how to resolve it and promptly did...nothing.

Now I'm without a website. I feel cheap. It's like going around without business cards. However, it is a good time to just re-launch. I learned some stuff and now I can apply it to the new site.

I'm trying to buy one today, but seem unable to get ahold of the person I need to to get it done. Once launched, I will announce here and may even transfer this blog to that site. Although that seems like a big job.

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Wow! A month since my last post?

2007-07-23T16:46:00.000-04:00

Yes it has been. No real reason why except boredom. Politics bores me now. All the same arguments. All that's left is the street fighting.

I even bore myself lately. I'm not the most interesting person to have for dinner, but if you had to live in my head, I'm really boring.

I've recently had a change of environment - not bad, not good - just a change. That might help. I'm going to try to start blogging regularly again. I'm really into TV shows right now. Maybe a bit more on that. What am I reading? Some fiction. But that's mostly just to get me to sleep.

Let's see what happens.

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Other People's Problems

2007-06-21T12:30:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I think I have problems.

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Me on Immigration

2007-06-18T16:06:00.001-04:00

In Ft. Wright Kentucky I purchased the Rodrigo y Gabriela CD. It was an impulse buy. I spotted it out of the corner of my eye in the Latin section. The Latin section was nearly as big as the Country section. Remember, this was Ft. Wright, Kentucky. If they're here, they're not going anywhere.

In my book, I call immigrants the high octane fuel of the US economic engine. I still stick by that. They work harder than us. Period.

That doesn't mean I have to like illegal immigrants. If terrorism is a threat - and I believe it is - and if it's such a threat that the US has launched a global war on terror and invaded two countries, shouldn't we at least secure our borders and know who is here? Or at least try an itsy bit?

No, amnesty for Mexican illegals isn't fair for the Hungarian who has been waiting in Budapest for the last couple years. The US and Mexico do have a special relationship. We've fought and changed or borders. We've intermingled our culture and intermarried our lives. There's economic lines that stretch across the border. Mexicans are special to us and we to them and that should be acknowledged. Not fair to the Hungarian, but the way it is. His country has a special historical relationship with Austria, right?

Looking at the Rodrigo y Gabriela CD I thought something again. US folks were are against illegals or against immigrants at all are called racist. But what about the Mexicans themselves. Looking at Rodrgio or Gabriela or any of the leaders of South America here or here or here or here, none of them look like the men or woman that I see working around here. The guys in the links above could be a meeting of the Cincinnati Rotary by the looks of them. The Mexicans I know and see stand about 5'6" max, have barrel chests, and whose profiles look one generation removed from an Aztec urn.

Mexico is exporting it's race problem. Call them the racists, not the people who get skittish hearing "para Espanol marke dos" when they call Cincinnati Bell.

For me. I like the Mexicans that are here. They seem nice. Let more of them in. As long as we know who they are.

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The Purpose Driven Life - Chapter Four

2007-06-07T17:09:00.000-04:00

Didn't mean to be rude about comments yesterday - two people say in my words "the jack-booted squelching of dissent". I thought I was just being polite.

But on with day four. I five pages, the author tells me that I'm going to die and my earthly existence is temporary and my temporal possessions are ephemeral and that I'll be carried away to an afterlife where all this doesn't matter. Well, if I truly believed that - in my bones - I wouldn't have picked up the book. That's the key to it all. Isn't it? In fact. That would be the first step.

My ire is getting up with this book for a number of reaosns. First hte layout of the book is just plain - suburaban. I'm using that too often, but it just is. The words aren't printed black, but some redish color. The chapter titles take up half a page with supporting quotes and a chapter number underlying them. There's little pull out quotes on each page. Most egregious is a little form at the beginning of the book labelled "My Covenant". It's suppose to be my contract with the author - his signature is printed on a line just for him - to finish out these forty days. You see - a committment written down is most powerful.

I'm written a book. I know when it's being stretched to justify the next price break.

Anyway, I know life is temporary. It eternity I wrestle with. The books were are blunt. Unartful. Uncrafted. And trite.

As no-brainer reminded me, chapter fours point was better sung by an aged rock-a-billy singer and a former child of the 70s junkies lyrics.

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Purpose Driven Life - Day 3

2007-06-06T16:25:00.002-04:00

Here's my point to ponder: Living on purpose is the path to peace.

Agreed. No argument here. I'm much happier when I have a to-do list in the morning and check things off. It gives me a direction.

This chapter asked "What Drives me?"

I guess I have a couple drivers right now. At home, I want to make like a Chinese restaurant special. At work, serve an underserved segment of the public - middle income, middle class people.

The beginning of this chapter mentions a couple things that drive many people - 1. guilt, 2. resentment and anger, 3. fear, 4. materialism, and 5. a need for approval. Yes, Mr. Won, I'll have a number 2, a number 3, and a number 5. Please throw in some duck sauce. No - not to go. I'll sit here and wallow in it.

This book says my purpose should be whatever God says it is. I'm a little uncomfortable with that. What if my purpose is to die to teach someone a lesson. I'd hate to be one of kids at My Lai who died to teach the world the horrors of war. First off, people should already know that - that's why there's books. Second, people being people - the lesson is quickly forgotten. Or the lessons are misinterpreted. My take on the 30th anniversary of the Kent State shootings: Don't throw rocks at people with guns. You'll lose! Probably not what others thought the lesson was.

So no thanks. Nihilism isn't for me, but I think I'll come up with my own raison d'etra.

Some housekeeping: I always appreciate comments. They make me feel paid attention to. However, I usually won't enter into a dialogue. I have to discuss everything in my life. In this little corner of it - I dominate the conversation. Plus, I don't want to talk religion with anyone. I'll just piss you off. Just wait.

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Purpose Driven Day Two

2007-06-05T08:11:00.001-04:00

So my 40 days and 40 nights just aren't going to be all in a row. One thing that bugged me about this Purpose Driven Life book is the evangelical centered aspect of it. In the intro it states that 40 days are needed for spiritual renewal to take shape. It gives several examples from the bible like this is a big revelation. But those from a liturgical perspective have known this for a millinemum or so. It's called lent. My problem with the evangelical perspective is that it's often about Lent (without calling it that - too Popish) with never a Mardi Gras. The problem I have with the secularized world is that it's always Mardi Gras but never Lent.

But that may be a quibble. On Day two I'm to mediate (don't think the author would like that word) I'm to ponder that God created me on purpose. I'm not an accident, the book states.

There's definitely an appealing side to this. Powerful actually. Anytime a negative thought enters my head I tell myself I'm living this life for a purpose...a mission. It seems to take the edge off. There's always a nagging thought in my head - since I was a kid - that there's something I will do. There's some destiny I was made for. Something more than public school, state college, then a 20- year work a day existence in at fabric lined cube. I still have that feeling.

But I'm not quite convinced. If there's a God I can more easily accept one that created me, but that's it. He wound me up like a little mechanical man then set me off to bump through life while he went into the other room to catch some tv. The idea of a nanny God who over me, watches my every movement with love and compassion - then lets me do every stupid thing I've ever done - just doesn't jibe with me. If pain and suffering is in the world for a purpose known only to God, I'm not sure there isn't a better way for Him to get His point across. Maybe He could try a power point presentation.

But until then: I'm not an accident.

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The Purpose Driven Life

2007-05-31T17:18:00.000-04:00

I was all gung-ho to embark on a spiritula journey of uplift and reflection. I'll have to reset. The first day of The Purpose Driven Life was something like It's not about me" I'm God's puppet or some such thing. Anyway, I was all ready. I was watching Reno 911 last night when a commercial came on for Larry the Cable Guy's newest "comedy" concert.

I once watched 45 minutes of Larry the Cable guy. One concert film I figured was a fluke. Two and a recently released movie displays to me a stunning absence of God in the universe. CS Lewis wrote that tragedies are God's way of calling us back to him. This tragedy of entertainment simply puts me off.

Not only does it make me question the existence of God, but also of taste, the crowds clappoing and laughing made me question democracy itself. I'm sure the Jihadis would never allow something like Larry the Cable guy to exist. Maybe there's something to them.

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Rudy Wins!

2007-05-31T12:09:00.000-04:00

I'll lay down $10 bucks that the 2008 match up will be Gore v. Rudy - no points.

Gore because Obama is an overrated, underexperience guy and no one is going to nominate Hillary to lose in November. It ain't gonna happen after two bitter losses in '00 and '04. Plus, as much as it pains me. I feel for Gore having come so close - and others will also.

Over on NRO today, Ramesh Ponnuru says abortion should sink Rudy. I don't buy it. Why? My basic principles.

1. Stereotypes are useful.
2. People are greedy.
3. People don't care to end abortion.

Here's the stereotype: Republicans are greedy and racist. Is there truth in it? I think yes. Hey, stereotypes are useful.

A lot of rich people vote democratic because they can afford to. Most good middle class people want to vote democratic. The rhetoric of the dems and libs is better than conservatives. "Let's help people and make the world better" sounds nicer and is easier to say than going into some Burkean dissertation on the fundamental inherent virtue of conservative self-reliance, limited government, and protection of a societies long-established institutions.

But that doesn't matter because most of the middle class doesn't know Burke from bubcus. What they know is the Republicans will lower their taxes. They want their money. It isn't nice to say "Suck it. I want mine" (I know. I've said it - the bad feeling goes away after awhile). So how do you justify to yourself wanting to have low taxes all for yourself. Some Republican hearts are not inspired by and - I think - most Republican minds are not convinced by the economics of conservatism.

So they say they're against baby killing (Yeah, that's the ticket).

Rudy will deliver on lower taxes. And you can picture him dropping the bomb on Tehran. So will abortion doom him? No.

People don't care about abortion. It's cover for them to feel morally good about voting for lower taxes (and I think race plays into it also, but I don't want to lite that powderkeg now).

Here's what to ask someone who says they won't vote for Rudy because of his abortion position: Have you ever attended an abortion rally? How much have you given to a pro-life group? If it's murder, why not throw yourself in-front of the clinic's door and be the next John Brown at Harper's Ferry? Chances are on question 1 the answer is no. Chances are on question 2 that the amount given is less than their cable bill. The answer to question 3 will be who?

If people wanted abortion gone it would be gone. But...there's too many father's who don't want to pay for their teenager's baby, there's too many mothers who are just done raising babies, there's too many guys who don't want to be stuck with a kid (and can spare the $500), and there's too many women who just don't want or can't handle a kid.

Rudy Wins!

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The Purpose Driving Life - A Blogging Experiment

2007-05-29T16:57:00.001-04:00

I'm feeling a bit down. I'm feeling a bit tired. It's hard to get inspired by anything. Maybe it's spiritual. Let's spend the next 40 days finding out.

While at church the other day I came across a free copy of The Purpose Driven Life. At least in suburban Ohio, this book is a hit. Overweight guys who play golf and fret about their 401(k) plans vote Republican and attend a mega church that asks little of them love this book.

Maybe there's something to it. I'll give it a try. The preface says I'm to read a chapter a day for the next 40 days. There's always a "Point to Ponder" at the end of each chapter. I'll ponder it here. Let's see if it changes my life right before your eyes.

My point to ponder?

If there were no God and everything was a result of random chance, there would be no purpose to your life. It all starts with God.

Ponderings tomorrow because today the answer to every question is SUCK IT! and that's probably not what they're looking for.

Today, first blushes. At first glance it seems like Viktor Frankl dressed in an televangelist powder blue suit. Is it Christianity as logotherapy? I don't know, but that's my first impression. It's been a few years since I've read Frankl - once in college and just about 3 years ago (didn't finish the second time, not sure if I understood the first). Maybe I'll check out Man's Search for Meaning tonight - it may serve as a good corollary.

I'm a little hesitant to reach a life changing book simply because my life is pretty good. Sure, it could be better, but I'm not wallowing in depredation. What if the book changes my life and the new life isn't so good. I'll have to tell the world to suck it.

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The Answer to Your Question is...Suck It!

2007-05-29T08:15:00.001-04:00

The answer to all questions put to me today is "Suck it."

You need a report? Really, well suck it.
You need a phone call returned? Yeah, I'll get right on that...after you Suck it!
You want to know what I did with that thing? Suck it.
Want my opinion on that? Sure, I think you should suck it.

See how this works - suck it, suck it, suck it.

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Mickey Mouse Fascism

2007-05-23T13:01:00.000-04:00

I took the day off yesterday. I was washing the dishes listening to the radio (Why does it feel weird to listen to the radio while at home? There's a TV - use it dabgumit!) when a string of commercials came on. They were:

Some group reminding us that the Ohio smoking ban - no smokes anywhere - is in effect and it's now a wonderful world.

Some group telling me with memorial day coming up that Kentucky State Police will be making sure I "Click it" or I'll get a "Tick - et".

There there was a radio station news announcement stating with the holiday weekend, there will be several DUI check points around town.

Then a final commercial, teaser for a local TV news station warning me to watch at 11 or else I won't know what at my kids school could harm them?

Maybe this happens during the day a lot. I don't know. I'm not home usually, but within the span of 2 minutes while I'm doing nothing but standing there in my shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops loading up my dishwasher - I was told what to do 3 different times...and the news media - that vigilant watchdog - is scaremongering soccer moms.

I was a little creeped out by it.

I've known this for a while. I'm never an alarmist, but this Mickey Mouse Fascism is easily going to get out of hand.

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Kentucky Primary Eve

2007-05-21T17:06:00.000-04:00

Who gives a great whoop? I don't. I'm usually a politically minded guy. But this is the first election I've not only sat out on but checked out on.

Our current governor Ernie Fletcher is said to be embattled. Well...aren't all politicians. He seems to have handled his embattlement not too well. How's he going to handle other things? I haven't been blown away like I should be by the first Republican Governer in 30 some odd years.

Billy Harper is a Paducah businessman. Being a "businessman" myself, I'm opposed to businessmen in politics. Nothing wrong with them, I just think they're bad politicians. First off, at some point, they always want to "run this place like a business". But it's not a business. It's a government - the ultimate not-for profit. Besides, running it like a business to them usually means running in the black which usually mens raising my taxes rather than lowering expenses.

Finally, businessmen make bad governors because it's a totally different beast. Only someone who has learned how politics works can really do any good or make any changes.

I don't want to vote for Anne Northrupp because one of her automatic calls came in at 10:30 one night. The campaign said it was a vendor glitch, but it still pissed me off.

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Writing Coming Up Short

2007-05-19T12:10:00.000-04:00

I've been given a large portion of the business section to write for Cincinnati Gentlemen magazine. My charge was to write one long feature piece of 800-1000 words then three shorter pieces of 150-300 words (each varied).

In school, I use to hope for short assignments - book reports especially. I remember trying to stretch the word count - this was a very, very, very good book - type of thing. In college I discovered Hemingway and learned how to write. Direct sentences. Simple languarge. How to use rhythm. I got good at it.

The problem with my shorter Cincinnati Gentlemen pieces is that either I've got gassy or the topics I wrote on were just took large. The editors said it was the latter - but maybe they were just being nice (although people usually aren't just being nice to me, so maybe I should trust them.) I rewrote them. Doubled the length and they seemed to like them better.

But I'm thinking I've grown gassy.

I've always judged writers by their word economy. On re-write Gustave Flaubert used to treat extraneous words like offensive weeds in a garden to be torn out. Stephen King said aimed for his second drafts to be a third shorter than his first. Hemingway - my personal savior on word economy - once said (supposedly) the best best short story he ever wrote was six words long. It took the form of a newspaper ad:

For sale: baby shoes; never worn.

That's what I shot for in my writing.

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Another Reason This War Sucks: No War Brides

2007-05-17T10:54:00.000-04:00

Another reason for soldiers to hate this war over others: ugly women.

Looking back at US wars since the 9-months of WWI, they've been in nice places with women that many men find attractive.

In WWI, it was France (oooo-la-la). In WWII, it was France (dark and hairy) again, but also Italians (dark and sultry) and Germans (that's for me). A lot of guys married English women they met waiting for D-Day. As far was women go, I don't think English chicks rate high on most guys desirable ethnicity meter, but I'm sure they could have bumped into some Irish lasses while on the isles sometime. At least English women have that accent that no matter how dumb they are makes them sound smart to American ears.

If a guy was sent to fight in the Pacific, he had his pick of Asian/Pacific islanders he could bump into (South Pacific).

As the fighting stopped and occupation began, this seems to have happened more. In heavily German Cincinnati, I know of three older women who came to the states after falling in love with a soldier.

If you're into Asian ladies, Korean women always had a refined quality. In my own limited experience, I've known of two Korean war brides. Too bad after 3 years of destroying their land we had to divide their country and consign half of it to hell.

Same could be said for Vietnamese ladies.

But are any soldiers fraternizing with Iraqi women? I haven't heard that story yet. I'm sure it's out there, but a combination of too much religion, a 30-year totalitarian regime and desert air doesn't make for runway models.

I don't think girls are back in the US worrying their boyfriends might fall in love with a busty burka'd babe like her grandmother worried about her beau falling for a pretty mademoiselle or fraulein.

That's one front of this war that really sucks for soldiers, Marines, and sailors alike.

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All Out War

2007-05-14T18:04:00.000-04:00

I've been taking a break from politics because it seems like where in a silly season. Silly people saying silly things because they have a silly ambition to be the most powerful man on the planet.

The silliest being the dems thinking the war is lost and we need to pull out. I say let's do it. Let Bushy have six months to finish up his little adventuring, but everyone else has to shut the f up about it until the deadline is up. Day of the deadline, the last Marine should be lift from the embassy.

The US could win this war. Just slip loose the dogs of war. Right now they are leashed by everything from media monitoring, the Geneva convention, and our own safe at home ideas on how a war should be fought.

Let these guys be soldiers. Let them rain down destruction on anyone we even suspect of being against us.

The US firebombed Tokyo and Berlin. We nuked the hell out of two huge cities. We hit Dresden for no other reason than it looked to pretty at the end of a war and no one stateside gave a hot damn until Hitler was dead his army busted and his remaining peeps were running around South America trying to remember not to give the Roman Salute when served a banana daiquiri left a toughie from the Mosad was sitting next to him at the bar.

Let loose our little arsenal of democracy and let the survivors vote for a democratic government - just keep at least 3 alive so there's no tie vote and - horror - civil war. The only reason this thing is taking so long is because the US has tried to be decent, tried (endangering their own lives in the process) not to hurt civies or hard religious places. All out war implemented by the US would end this thing inside of a month...but I'm guessing that would be bad to.

Bush would be damned. Drum out of office by public opinion - a public who didn't have to worry about a nucular (on purpose) Iran, a terrorist funding Syria, or any trouble from any crackpot who'd been shared shatless by watching CNN because the business of war had been done.

Let's take up the deadline and give up our pretensions.

Stay You.
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Left Side of the Bell Curve

2007-05-10T12:01:00.000-04:00

More episodes in infantilization:
There's a large billboard on Queen City Ave in Cincinnati that tells me it's never good to shake a baby. Would this same billboard be acceptable in toney parts of town?

Anti-smoking commercials: Obnoxious teenage virgins harassing people about their smoking. Listen up jackass - get yourself a prospectless job, a loveless marriage, an endless mortgage, an unappreciative kids, then come bitch at me for my 5 minutes of pleasure with the Marlboro Man freezing my ass off because that b&%$h in the next cube would do that half hearted (ahh, ahh) cough if I lite up within 5 miles of her. I know it's killing me - the sooner the better. (OK, I don't smoke, but that would be my reaction.)

Ad campaigns that remind people - younins, usually, but not always - that unprotected sex leads to disease and - even worse - children. They know this. Tell them they'd bleed from the ears and they'd still want it. It's sex. Besides... A condom just don't feel right, baby. I don't want anything between us.

Which leads me to my topic for today: Dumb people.

Plot IQ scores on a x-axis and a the number of those people with those IQs on the Y. You'll get a nice clean normal distribution of intelligent. The famed Bell Curve of controversies past.

I think we need to remember that there are dumb people our there. This is hard to take in a society that strives for egalitarianism under "all people are created equal" but the fact is that half of use are below average on the brain-o-meter and the majority of that half are big lummoxes.

The worst policy the Bush administration pushed is No Child Left Behind. It assumes that kids that don't go to college are 'left behind'. No they're not. A lot of smart people just don't go to college (N.B. the converse is also true: a lot of dumb people teach college). But a lot of people on the left side of the curve are just not capable of higher or abstract thought.

This isn't meant to be cruel - it's just a fact. Pressuring them into going to college where they either fail or are passed along doesn't do anyone good - them or the people who actually have the IQ to be there.

Dumb people can do good jobs and worthwhile things, but let's not kid them or ourselves. And I'd rather them be doing those jobs than higher IQ illegal immigrants.

And don't give me any grief that everyone is smart in their own way. That kind of thinking needs to be left behind in about 5th grade. There's just some people who are just plain dumb.

And don't confuse station in life with intelligence either. IQ doesn't guarantee success. Neurosis, society, culture, and self-esteem all factor in, but give a kid with an above average IQ a decent home life and relatively benign neighborhood to grow up in and he'll do ok. The block head won't.

I go on this jag from a favorable review of Saturday Night Fever by John Derbyshire. He rightly claimed it was a movie respectfully about those that live on the left side of the curve. He claimed it was the last. Maybe. But My Name is Earl is a tv show - not so much about trashy people, but about dumb people and their lives. The fact that dumb people are often trashy is not unrelated, but the dumb came first.

Stay You.
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I Don't Want to Be Infantilized

2007-05-08T11:44:00.000-04:00

Friday's WSJ had an article on Girls Gone Wild guy now facing jail time. Apparently some of his subjects weren't of age, but the piece made the larger point that event hose of age weren't of age - maturity wise. The WSJ piece says the young ladies just aren't old enough to consent.

At what age is a girl ready to make that decision, one that she will live with--technologically speaking, at least--for the rest of her life? A woman of 18 may be physically indistinguishable from one who is 21, but they are developmentally worlds apart.

This is just another example of our society infantilizing everyone...and I mean everyone. Look, I'm pretty sure most women - even with a few beers in them isn't going to drop their skirts and raise their tops for a camera crew. Attention hungry skanks are. One of them writes a compelling piece here (bad word warning). But most are not. But at 18, they're well past being absolved of responsibility.

I started getting ticklish about this after the Virginia tech shootings where pundits were talking about "protecting our children". Look, it's tragic but these aren't children. They're college age. If they weren't a little bright and had some cash, they'd be walking a factory floor and not be considered kids.

I may be reading more into this from my limited experience, but a 25 year living at home is still considered a 'kid' in some ways. No. He's a loser. get a job and get an apartment. Splitting a one bedroom with a drunken buddy sucks - but it's time to be on your own.

At a conference last week, I was warned about how states are now protecting seniors from bad financial advisors. Seems fair enough until I learned that a senior is defined as 55 and above.

I know what's happening. Your average 64 year old is cocky and wanting to take on the world until there's a market hiccup. Then all of a sudden they turn into Grampa Simpson reminiscing about about watching Charlie Lindbergh dancing with a flapper on top of a flagpole.

So you're not an adult until your mid-20's and not able to make sound judgments about your finances after 55. Incredible. We get to spend a lifetime as children.

Not me. Like Love Junk sang,

'Cause I'm an adult now
I'm an adult now
I've got the problems of an adult
On my head and on my shoulders
I'm an adult now

And have been since I was, what, 15 or so.

Stay You.
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Lileks Was Killed

2007-05-07T12:41:00.000-04:00

Just another reason to give up on humanity.

I read Lileks' blog just about every day. The entire site can kill a week and you'll never be bored. The guy's got some writing chops. He can make a day doing nothing with his daughter interesting for godsakes. I've read running reviews of his of tv shows I never intend to watch - he's that good. He gets a billion hits a day. His blog is older than any others.. The BBC has been to his home to interview him about blogs.

He can write interesting stuff.

His home base is the Minneapolis Star Tribune. As most know, he's been demoted.

They've killed my column, and assigned me to write straight local news stories. Really.

That's the junk I do. Nothing wrong with it. All work is noble. But in a world where it just isn't that hard to write for papers, Lileks stood out. Now he's gonna work a beat and report the facts. No color. No humor. No him.

It's a testament to the guy's skills that it really bummed me out that this was done to him. There really isn't any justice out there.

The corporate world is full of dumbasses.

Stay You.
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Smells Like Whole Lotta Love

2007-05-04T13:46:00.000-04:00

When I want to irritate my wife while she's listening to Sting I mention that he's our generation's Neil Diamond. He's got enough of an edge to be acceptable by the youths but not so edgy as to drive the 30-somethings away. And that 30-something demographic - that fills larger venues at $100 a ticket is a sweet spot. The faux-"I'm really a jazz musician earning a rock star's paycheck" schtick he's got also helps with the ladies.

It's brilliant marketing.

But thinking of my own listening made me realize that my favorite Nirvana is becoming my generation's Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin is good but overplayed - at least in Cincinnati. At any one time at least one of three stations is GETTING THE LED OUT. I'm sick of them. We have a dirth of AAA radio here, but it's what I listen to - and there's a ton of Nirvana being played. Nirvana even makes it over to those other three stations. Nirvana/Zeppelin/Nirvana. You gotta love corporate radio.

So now I'm sick of Nirvana. They are off my iPod. But I'm sure they're going to be played for years on end and when The Divine Mrs. M and I go on our retirement cruise we're going to go down to the ship's bar to dance and we'll have to mosh to Heart Shaped Box.

I'll probably bust a hip.

Stay You.
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My Book Project

2007-05-03T08:23:00.000-04:00

There's an idea I have for a book. It's really good. It's historical fiction. I love it. It's been bouncing around in my head for a year or so. That means it must be good. I sat down a couple of times and cranked out 5,000 words or so. The Divine Mrs. M. read it and said go forth and write.

The only problem is - I don't know when. I hate myself for typing this, but "I don't have the time." Now I really hate myself. Every day I hear people whine that lament. It really bugs me. We all have the time. I just don't want to make time. For example: today I spent 25 minutes bouncing around my favorite blogs. I do this just about every day - usually in the morning and in during hold times.

I could write the great American novel then. I could do it during the 1-2 hours I watch tv a day. But if I don't do those things I get testy. I like the downtime. The only additional plus side of ripping out those chunks of laziness each day would be to concentrate on my boy band career. I could use that anger.

As some of you may know, I'm losing weight - not so much to get healthy but to qualify myself as a slender boy band member. I've decided to be the Scottish version of Justin, but instead of sexy I'm bringing back the surly. My stage name will be James Timberloch. I'll wear a kilt or at least a plaid shirt tied around my waist. I'll do a stomping dance yell obscenities at the crowd then retire to my dark dressing room in a depressive funk. I'll call it "the Family Reunion tour".

I think there's a market for this.

Or I could sit down for a hour a day and write that darned book.

Stay You.
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The Purple Gang

2007-05-02T15:49:00.000-04:00

I don't read fiction much, but while in Clearwater I read Whiskey River. Mr. Estlemen is that rare writer who can actually write. Very nice quality in a writer. It's a historical novel about the prohibition era in Detroit. I'm sitting by the pool on Sunday reading it and Mr. Estlemen calls the Jewish gang in the book is the Purple Gang.

What a stupid name, I thought. I'm disappointed in you Mr. Estlemen.

But something ticked away in my brain and about 5 minutes later while walking on the beach I realized. The Purple Gang! They were the whole rhythm section. Let's Rock!

So I wikipedia'd The Purple Gang and sure 'nuf it was a real gang. They were named The Purple Gang, according to Mr. Estlemen by a butcher who said they whole lot was rotten like purple meat.

This is the type of thing I learned while in Clearwater. Want me to manage your money?

Classic rock was on my mind because I did this article for our local alt-weekly City Beat. I'm not a big believer in dream interpretations, but I think I gave them a fair shake.

Stay You.
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Flew in From Miami Beach

2007-05-01T19:26:00.000-04:00

Clearwater Beach really. There on a conference. I don't enjoy conferences. Got through it though.

I'm tired. But when I got back all heaven broke loose. Several people had left messages asking if they could meet with me to be clients. There were e-mails. Opportunities. That's a welcome home I can appreciate.

Things are clicking with the businesses lately. Things seem to be coming easy. Now the challenge is to build on that. What I've got going isn't big - but it's mine. And I've built it my way. I'm proud of it. there's been no compromises with how I've built it. That feels good. If a couple other things break my way, life could suddenly become very good.

That's nice to think about.

I'm not sure what to attribute this to. Maybe the weight loss? Still hanging around 40 lbs. Maybe joining that new club - very positive people. Maybe it's rubbing off. Maybe it's the culmination of 7 years of work finally paying off. I'm not sure.

But this is no time to slack off - time to double down. Put the shoulder to it a little harder and see what happens....tomorrow. I'm tired now.

Didn't sleep well. I never sleep well without The Divine Mrs. M. nor in a strange bed. Tonight - I'll sleep like a snoring king.

Stay You.
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My TV

2007-04-30T05:59:00.000-04:00

Ok, today. I'm recommitting to blogging. We spoke and thought it was for the best. We've had our time out. I packed my things and moved into a little apartment new the university where I thought it was hip to live, but I was no happier there. I grew lonely after 4 days, all the women I thought I could met didn't want to met me. Faced with myself; I'd rather face blog. We we talked things out, patched things up and I moved back in.

The kids are happy.

So today I'll write about TV.

I'm really getting alot of joy from it lately. Here's where.

Fox has a new program on called Drive. I think it should have been called The McGuffin 500 or Grand Theft McGuffin. It's done by the same guy did Buffy and Angel and Firefly so I'm all in.

I love Charlie Sheen talking dirty. Talking dirty is easy. People like people to talk dirty on their TVs. However that show does it with such good writing that it puts my puritan side at ease.

American Idol. This was the first year we watched Idol and we're hooked. I'm still struck by the Simon Cowell thing. I was expecting a real dick. He's really not all that mean. Have you ever had a client bust your chops over price? Ever dealt with an attorney working against you? If you go one level over the cubicle people and their structured annual reviews - things get nasty in life and business and Simon Cowell isn't an anomoly. He's straightforward and little blunt but I get pissed too when people waste my time. Come into to my office, make a claim on my time, and arrive late or not be prepared? I'll gut you for wasting my time. Plus, he's right. That trumps everything.

The Shield
In it's last season and running out of steam. Nobody can brood that long without a heartattack -but I still love it.

Everybody hates Chris
Honesty.

Earl
Insightful. More insightful about every level of America than people realize. New immigrants should be required to watch it.

Ok, I think that's about it. More blogging later.

Stay You.
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The Calender

2007-04-18T08:04:00.000-04:00

My calender is whipping me like a 18th century Presbyterian school master whips a truant boy - hard, cruelly, and with a hint of homo-erotic glee.

Things are piling up.

The way I've chosen to structure my income, much of it is contingent upon me doing something. If I don't get something written or cause people to want to invest with me, the money stops. If I'd stuck with some corporate job I could so months (I've seen it happen) - or maybe years - of doing nothing but coming up with "goals" and "mission statements" and the paychecks would keep coming. The key in the corporate worlds seems to be just to stay out of HR's gun sites and wait for your position to be eliminated or transferred.

So now I have to do things that cause my phone to ring. There's a certain gerbil on a treadmill quality to it. A day off is money lost. At some point that I can just now start to see in the not-too-distant future, the treadmill will run itself and with nothing but a little care, the money will flow. Until then, I have to put on my track shoes.

Stay You.
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Howard's Back Again

2007-04-17T08:01:00.000-04:00

Haven't been blogging. Don't know why. Just haven't been doing it. I've been busy, but I've been busy before and kept on blogging. Whatever?

I think the main thing that I've bumped up against is that I've run out of things to say. I've run out of things to comment on. There's a certain onanist quality to blogging and I don't like to do that sort of thing in public.

On the home Front - I turned 37 yesterday. I'm unhappy about that. Not that I'm getting older - but it just looks and sounds like such an ugly number. Thirty-seven. Thirty-six rolls off the tongue better. I can't wait for 38.

What else....I'm also still down 40 pounds. I've just landed a regular gig with a local magazine. My investment business seems to be going through a nice spurt of growth.

Ok, I promise to do more and provide more and well, time to go.

Stay You.
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Amanda Georgi Bagley

2007-03-29T10:25:00.000-04:00

The below hit me harder than I thought it would have. It popped up in my in box. It took a few seconds to recognize the sender and the name in the subject line. I thought it spam for a moment. I didn't know her extraordinarily well. I went to school together since 6th grade, was at her house a few times, I think she showed me her horse once. I didn't keep in touch afterward. Never even thought to.

When I got the e-mail I was consumed with trivial matters in a trivial part of my job. What's wrong with us for not appreciating what's important in life until something tragic happens to someone else?

Amanda Georgi Bagley, 37, died in her sleep Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at the home of her mother and grandmother in Coldwater, MI. She is survived by her husband, Lafe; daughter, Holly; mother, Ann Georgi; brother, Matt Georgi; and grandmother, Judy Bertram. She was preceded in death by her father, John Georgi. Mandy was an avid gardener, adopter of stray cats, beloved by her friends, and is now at peace.

Mandy was born in Fort Wayne, IN and graduated from Snider High School. She received her bachelor's degree from Columbia College in Chicago, IL. Mandy then lived in Los Angeles for ten years where she worked in the film industry. In 2004 she married Lafe Bagley. In 2006 she was diagnosed with colon cancer while pregnant and gave birth to Holly Amanda Bagley two days later. Mandy fought a valiant struggle for eleven months. She lived with grace and dignity and died with courage. Mandy will be forever missed by those who knew her.

There will be a memorial at Peace Lutheran Church in Fremont, IN on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 11 AM. Please do not send flowers. Consider making a donation to the Bagley Family Fund c/o North Shore Community Bank, 4343 W. Peterson Ave., Chicago, IL 60646. The fund will be donated to the Coldwater Cancer Center, Pets Are Worth Saving - Chicago, and for Holly's education.

Stay You.

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Wine Festival

2007-03-27T11:32:00.000-04:00

Alas, I forgot to bring my camera to the wine festival like I usually do. Pics of labels I like is better than taking notes.

It was a port night - I tried them all. and I didn't find much I liked better than my now nighyly Seppelt Tawny Port. Although Chocoloate Amore was interesting. Not an everyday thing but good curiosity.

We stopped off at the Hilton's bar for a drink and quick bit. Click this link for a pic of it and the bar. I know that's suppose to be a landmark in architecture and design...but I don't get it. Not much going on there, so it was...

...dancing at the Havana Martini club. The band sucked. I mean really sucked. It came close to receiving black hole status it sucked so much. But the Divine Mrs. M. got to drink her beloved Elizabeth Taylor Martini's. Nothing makes a girl happy like one of those - or three of those.

About 1:30 hunger struck and we ate at the best restaurant that's open until 3:00 am. Well, it would have been good at any time. We'll be going back. Shanghai Mama's on 6th street is great. We feed you long time.

A couple blocks back to the hotel and then to bed - but that's unprintable.

Woke up. hit the pool, walked around downtown awhile, drove around awhile. Ate lunch at one of our old places Chez Nora...on the terrace...on a perfect day.

Good weekend. well rested. 363 days until next year. Arghh!

Stay You.
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The Third Death

2007-03-22T11:43:00.000-04:00

There's some stupid saying about people always dying in threes. If that's true - if the reaper's reclamation bin has a capacity of trois (yes, in my world the Grim Reaper is French) - then I've just had my fill.

They were all quite different people, but they all had a common theme - they were way to young.

Regular readers remember our church's pastor died about 13 months ago. I did an obit here. He was the political antithesis of myself, but I think we may have been temperamentally the similar. He was helping our church after some tough times. One Sunday, he was eating lunch in front of the tv and died. He was 57.

Then at Thanksgiving, my wife's mother died. While not terribly young. She didn't have to die. to use a term she may have understood, there seemed to be a slow accretion of joy. Of wanting to go on with life. She was 67. Looked older. Could have lived longer. Two weeks before her death, I wrote this column.

Now Cathy Seipp is dead at 49. NRO has a great symposium here. Very cool lady. Someone whose blog I posted to and traded e-mails with once. There was no closeness of course from her end, but I read her blog every day. She wrote about her life and there's a natural tendency to "feel" like you know those people.

For those whose faith is built upon sand, there's little comfort in death. Young death seems an especially tragic waste.

Stay You.
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To Kentucky Conservatives

2007-03-21T08:03:00.001-04:00

Made you look.

Just kidding...I'm Guiliani all the way. I love his stance on abortion and gun control.

HA HAHAHAHAHAHA HA!

Stay You.
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Disturbing Trend?

2007-03-20T16:54:00.000-04:00

I've left messages for three people today that each had obscenities on their voicemail. Each of them was a senior citizen.

The obscenities were "hell", "damn" and the third broke the third commandment. As my grandmother use to say "What up wit dat?"

Seniors are now recording their obscenities as greetings. I learned alot of obscenities - but mainly racial epitaphs - from my fraternal grandfather, but I don't think he woudl have recorded them - although he may have thought the FBI was.

Very disturbing.

Stay You.
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Prayers For Cathy

2007-03-19T13:00:00.000-04:00

Someone I'd still like to meet is Cathy Seipp. Cool lady...at least from her blog. Her daughter reports only a few days left.

On a lighter note, yesterday I did a great story on the Taxation of Gambling. It got the big headline above the fold in the Metro section. I had two other articles printed on the next page. Not a bad days work.

Stay You.
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Three Projects

2007-03-15T08:35:00.000-04:00

I really need to start getting back to blogging but again ever since the new year the motivation just hasn't been there.

I'm writing plenty. A lot for the Enquirer. A bit for a smaller paper. A couple magazines pieces. I did a feature piece for the program for the upcoming Cincinnati Wine Festival which has been a little goal of mine for a while - except it looks like it got spiked. A pdf of the piece is here. Alas, no Howard.

One reason I've been lax is that I've embarked on three great projects.

The first is the continued getting into shape. Depending on what I weigh in at tomorrow - I might have lost 40 lbs. I've been hovering at 38 lbs lost for a week plus now. I've been hitting the new gym in the morning so I can free up time with the kids. But work meetings in the evenings seem to be intruding on those nights.

The second is the re-tackling of a historical novel that I'm writing. I dashed off 2000 words a couple months ago, let it sit to see if I really liked it. I did. alicia gave it a read and a strong thumbs up. So I'm going to try fiction. My goal is to get up at 5 each morning. One day at the gym, the next write 1000 words before work.

The third is a simple one but seeming to have a huge effect. On the way to work I've been turning off the radio. I force myself into a running monologue about how great life is. 20-25 minutes of that each day seems to be paying off in a much lighter attitude and outlook. This is also the primary reason for the light blogging. I use to use this blog to blow off steam, but with my new morning routines, steam is blown by the time I get to the office - and it doesn't seem to be building up.

Stay You.
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Faith

2007-03-05T07:41:00.000-05:00

I wrote the below - about my lack of faith yesterday in a 5-minute burst while I was on hold. 30 minutes later i took it down because it wasn't really true. I do have faith and am generally a positive person:
My kids? They seem to be so far down a good path that even if they do veer off a little, they'll be alright.
The stock market? I'm always positive there - in the long-term. At least for the U.S.
The GWOT? Yep. There too. Even if Barack or Hillary win. I just wish Bush would let the soldiers and Marines be the cold hearted kill-bots that they were always stereotyped as when I was a kid (or - when they returned home - psychologically irreparably damaged cry babies.)

I do have faith. But just not in the realm of my own personal paychecks. I have three general income sources (none of which is a trust fund) which is 2 more than most and 3 more than many. I do ok. Above average. But there's something not there. Or what is there is a whispering rasping voice telling me "This isn't going to last. You can't keep fooling them. It's all going away." I'm not sure who leased that guy a room in my brain or how to evict him, but he's been there awhile. He's painted the walls, hung up pictures, and made the place his own.

So here's what I wrote. It has the flavor of sophomore year cannabis inspired pop philosophy which I always eat up. Bon Appetite.
+++++++++++++++++++

I've been thinking a lot lately about my lack of success and my inability to enjoy the success I have had. I've come to the conclusion that it comes from one thing - my lack of faith.

Faith. Me? I've got none of it.

It's a pretty big thing.

This isn't a religious post. I think many nonreligious, irreligious, and outright anti-religious people have faith - a belief that "tomorrow will be better than today". I've met plenty of horrible people with plenty of faith. They cheat, lie, and steal...and tomorrow will be a better day.

Now it might help if you've got yourself a structure in place developed over 5,000, or 2,000, or even a 1,000 years that you can lean on, but even just a lone man in the desert with a simple belief that tomorrow will be easier than today has faith. Now that tomorrow can be a few years off when the back broken sharecropper is welcomed into the arms of a loving Jesus or the day after tomorrow when Tel Aviv is finally flattened. But that's faith.

Faith is powerful allows you to take risks (I've taken few of those in my life). It allows you to go on. To persevere. It's the reason condemned prisoners get up in the morning and death camp detainees pick up the shovel.

Faith isn't something cooked up by pope or preacher man to pilfer flocks. It's not the "opiate of the masses". It's evolutionary. Even biological. It's a defense mechanism developed over millennium. Doubt me? Is depression biological? It think that it's been proven. What is depression but a simple lack of faith? That's the reason that nihilism never really caught on. And where it does catch on you see a depressive society. See those happiness surveys of Europeans v. Americans. I think those reflect a more nihilistic v. a more religious culture.

I think this was further seen when the commies tried to claim that faith is nothing more than an appendix - evolution developed it for something, but in this brave new world - it's no longer needed. Cut it out. Rip it out.

Yes. Faith is a necessary of life. And I've got none of it. Or at least not much. If I was born without a hand or with my brain wired up wrong I could at least get some help. I've gone to churches. I don't sit there and scowl with contempt. I'm open. I want the spirit to seiz me. But this is like a deaf man wanting hearing to descend from heavan and land as a tongue of fire in his ears.

Where do I go for a dose of faith?

Stay You.
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Howard McEwen Wins KPA Award

2007-02-28T18:16:00.000-05:00

From an e-mail I sent out yesterday:

Howard McEwen, CFA won a 2006 Kentucky Press Association 2^nd place award in the Best Enterprise or Analytical Story category for his article for the Sunday Challenger headlined “While Queen City Dawdled, NKY Took Action” (see attached).

In awarding the prize, the judges noted “Another great lead, pulls reader right in. Good detailed history of the airport.”

The article is here. I learned about this a month ago, but kept forgetting to post about it. I skipped the awards dinner. I had little interest in driving the 1 1/2 hours to Louisville for a rubber chicken dinner.

It's cool to win an award in a field I have absolutely no training in. Too bad the paper is defunct. My old editor who now lives and works in Texas let me know about it. Apparently a former reporter or somebody went ahead and did the submissions. Thanks to him...and them.

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My New Job

2007-02-27T11:10:00.000-05:00

I haven't gotten it yet, but....

I responded to this ad for a copy writer I saw here:

Copywriter
Tue, Feb 13, 2007-12:00 AM
Do you like pina coladas? Getting caught in the Rain? Ok, we know the song sucks, but, hey, it’s poetic . . . if you’re more into single malt whiskies, late nights with great literature and writing killer copy . . . then read on. Send a small manifesto on the kind of team you need to make your copy rock, 2 samples of your work . . . oh yah and maybe a resume to: mycopyrocks@cinci.rr.com

To which I responded with the following:

Dear My Copy Rocks People,
So you caught my interest with your cutesy little help wanted ad that I read two weeks ago. It's been eating away at my attention ever since.
Who are these people, I kept asking myself. Their generic domain name makes them irritatingly anonymous…yet mysteriously alluring. Like that girl at Starbuck's who gives me my Mocha Latte but never wears a name tag.

Maybe it's only because I want a new job. I'm bored in my current one. I'm a financial advisor. I grudgingly do the work I have to in between surfing the net - varying between straight porn and right-wing political websites. Creatively, this job is boring.

But at night I have fun. I put together short little stories for magazines and newspapers. I enjoy the work. Not too demanding, but it loosens up my writing muscles to tackle my longer work – a fictionalized account of the assassination of Kentucky Governor William Goebel in 1901. I love writing stuff that has absolutely no market whatsoever!

But even those shorter pieces aren't doing it for me. Writing copy pays better, I hear. It's still creative. I'd love to suck at the corporate teat a while, but I don't want another corporate job where I'm brought up before some human resources drone every time I scream curses into the ether and challenge God to a good old street fight.

Fine. You got me. Here's my blog with my right-wing political observations and tid-bits on life. Here's my writing website with links to much of my work. I've attached a resume also. If you don't like it, I'd rather not hear from you.

Think I have a chance? It's very similar to a cover letter I sent to Merrill Lynch a few months back. They replied with a restraining order.

Stay You.
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Girlfriend

2007-02-26T10:24:00.000-05:00

Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" is the best executed pop song in the history of the world.

And by world I mean American secular pop - because we all know that European pop and Christian "rock" sucks.

Stay You.
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In Which Howard Sides With The Mooslims

2007-02-23T12:58:00.000-05:00

Ok, make a note of the day. Today, I side with the Mooslims.

The Powerline guys have a post here on the Minniapolis Taxidriver skirmish. It seems that Somali cab drivers don't want to carry passengers who are taking home a bottle of duty free booze. They link to Daniel Pipes here, but I'm at work and can't spare a hour to read him. Maybe the specifics of the case would change my mind.

But if they don't want to carry booze carrying passengers - fine with me. That is if their boss allows it. Why should we force them to do something that violates their beliefs? And that's what this is about - force. Everyone is against force until it benefits them. And the solution is simple: the passengers should either stick the bottle in the briefcase/luggage/or purse or wait for the next taxi.

However, I do think this should be extended elsewhere. Say, if Wal-mart doesn't want to sell abortion pills, then don't give them guff. If a black taxi driver doesn't want to give a ride to a man wearing a "I Hate N------" shirt, he shouldn't have to. The shirt shouldn't be illegal, but neither should denying him a ride. If a devout Baptist restaurateur doesn't want to serve homosexuals, he should have the right - but then all decent people should not go to that restaurant either....and if a homosexual antique dealer doesn't want to sell to a woman wearing a crucifix so be it.

People - libs and conservatives - always seem eager to bring the full force of government to their cause. It's a hammer to frequently used.

Simple free economics - when given the chance - will always bring equity. If this is such a big deal or if it offends enough people, then that will open up the service to competitors who have no problem with it. I picture a line of yellow Somali-driven taxis idling while the O'Malley Brothers Taxi Service helps the folks load up their tax-free Vodka into their waiting trunks.

Stay You.
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Is That All There Is?

2007-02-22T13:50:00.000-05:00

I've never believed in writer's block. I think it's a crock cooked up by lazy writers who wish to romanticize their lassitude. You never hear a pipefitter call in sick and say, "sorry boss, I've got pipefitter block. I just can't produce today." Nope. You never hear that. But writers phone in that excuse all day long.

But I think I've got it. At least in relation to this blog. I'm pumping out Enquirer stories but blogworthy content to provide to the masses - ok, 47 hits a day - I've got bupkis.

So maybe I'm tapped out after a couple years there's nothing original I can write or at least rip off in an original way. I'm now an empty vessel. Maybe I'm just putting to much pressure on myself.

But then today I was working out at my new gym downtown and I looked out the window and up to the Carew Tower and got somewhat inspired. There's nothing so human as a skyscraper. In this nihilist age that we live in nothing says "We humans are here and we are to be dealt with" like a skyscraper. Nothing is as declarative as foundation piles driven deep and steel built high. Every skyscraper started out as a thought of some man somewhere. That's wonderful.

That's also what makes trailer parks so goddamn depressing. A mobile home lacks commitment.

It's also is why the symbolic shock of 9/11 were those buildings falling. Yes. Fox shows stupid TV shows that show buildings being demo'd, but people on cheer because they have the hope of something new and better going up in it's place. Show a building being destroyed for a parking lot or just plain fallow ground - and there'd be no cheers.

Stay You.
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Useless People

2007-02-19T17:48:00.000-05:00

So I opened drudge up today and saw that Brittany Spears went batty and shaved her head. My first thought was, "Wow, that crazy hillbilly Brittany couldn't stand the useless person spotlight being on Anna Nicole for so that long, uh? The best she would do was shave her head? And from the pics from last I saw her - that means she's totally hairless."

Honestly, that's what I thought.

It reminds me of Dave Foley's comment when the newly deceased Phil Hartman lost an Emmy to the little brother on Frazier, "What's Phil got to do to win an award in this town?"

Anyway, chick head shaving seems so passe. I remember when that woman did it for the first Star Trek movie. Can you remember her name? I could tell you it when I was 8. But now? No. It's here. Hopefully Anna Nicole, Brittany, and the rest of the useless people will go the same way down my memory hole.

Stay You.
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Barrack Obama Uncovers Media Racism

2007-02-16T17:12:00.000-05:00

Judged not by the color of his skin but the content of his character (defined as age, experience, and trackrecord of accomplishments) Barrack Obama is a joke.

He's a relative lightweight with nothing going on. If he wasn't black - or blackish - then his candidacy would hardly be worth a macadamia nut.

This is blunted somewhat by the claim that it's his biography that sells. Huh? His biography. Is that another way of saying "Cult of Personality"?

He may be a great guy and a greater president, but there's nothing on his resume that explains why he is considered a serious candidate for President. But then again that hasn't stopped John Edwards, but I have a feeling Obama has some shame.

It's unfortunate that he's black and that's the only reason he's being looked to and it's further unfortunate that it's the sort of thing that he supposedly lambasts.

He's a first-termer with light political experience before that who won a statewide office against without much of a challenger. The first Republican candidate - Jack Ryan - pulled out late in the game after being embarrased by that most Republican of kinky sex - sex with his own wife. He just liked giving it to her in front of other people - but can you blame him? The Repubs followed that up with that silly Alan Keyes.

The poor guy got suckered or lured into this and his inexperience - and unfortunately his family's - is going to show. The media is going to turn. This thing is going to imploded or be exploded by the Clintonistas...or co-oped by the Clintonistas.

I'm afraid, he's going to be diminished by this.

Stay You.
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War is Lost - a Definition

2007-02-09T10:21:00.000-05:00

When I said in the last post that Iraq is lost - I meant the whole planting and nurturing the seeds of democracy portion. If we define it as getting and killing the Bathist Fascists - then it was won a couple years ago.

Maybe Bush overreached on the democracy thing. I, for one, was caught up in the romanticism of it.

And if we'd broken up the Bath apparatus and then got out to just let the nut jobber mooslims take over, would that be failure? Only if WWII was a defeat for us. After the war, the Soviets controlled half of Europe. France and most of the northern climes were commie symps. Spain was fascist until '75 - Greece was partially. In Asia, the whole of China went Commie.

Stay You.
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Anna Nicole and Me: Iraq is Lost

2007-02-09T09:12:00.000-05:00

Before my post, a question:

Since Anna now dominates the news, is there anyone else in the country happier about the death of Anna Nicole Smith than that lovelorn-diaper-wearing-cross-country-driving-stay-away- from-my-man-Major-Nelson wanna-be?

Probably not.

As for Anna Nicole and the war: The war is lost. Clicking back and forth to the cable news leader last night, it was wall to wall Anna. We're still at war, right? Not really. Men are dying, but war? Maybe not so much?

Look, I'm not war obsessed. I thing there's still room for infotainment on the news. But shouldn't they lead off with the geopolitical conflict that will most likely result in a wide range of historically seismic events ranging from the flowering of democracy in the Muslim world to a thermonuclear exchange between Iran and Israel - and the US and then probably Pakistan which of course will drive the Indians nuts who will want to lob at nuke at Islamabad just for fun and then that will really piss off the Chinese what with all that radiological fallout damaging crops - the ChiComs as usually won't worry about the actual people so much unless of course they are 1. Christian and 2. doing ti-chi in the park, then it's "off to the organ harvesting prison with you" - which will then make taiwan and Japan empty out? Shouldn't they?

The Dems and Rinos - most who voted for the war - are debating how best to politically distance themselves from it. Meanwhile, the 4 moderates in Iraq are trying to keep the lid on this thing while crazy-eyes Akmed and his trusted side kick Anbar are just waiting to see the last marine lift off from the embassy before they can go medieval on the country (and when the go medieval, they mean that literally).

Unless some positive news happens soon, the war is lost. The left can't stand to see American interests furthered anywhere and as for the public - the war now bores them - and that's the greatest sin you commit on any American. Boring them.

Stay You.
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Simon Cowell and Me

2007-02-08T11:43:00.000-05:00

I've noted before: I've never watched reality tv. I've never seen a CSI Anywhere. I haven't watched a Law and Order since Mr. Big from Sex and the City left the show.

However - this season - for the first time - the Divine Mrs. M. and I have watched American Idol. I'm a little uncomfortable admitting it, but there it is. I watch - and enjoy - the damned thing. It's season passed on our Tivo.

But something bothers me. Obviously, before watching I knew who Simon Cowell was and that he was mean. But then I watched it and...he's not mean.

I guess in the cubicle dominated landscape of the corporate world where all is controlled by a merciless and litigiousphobic h.r. department, he may be mean. But in a world where men pay their bills by making a sale - whether real estate, machine tools, or investments, he's somewhat tame.

I lived in the corporate world where a direct observation of a co-worker's or underlings failures could elicit their summoning the jack booted hr department to stomp on your career. I grew up in public schools where it's just easier to pass you along than deal with irate parents, stupid kids, or hard work.

I watch this Simon Cowell guy and he seems to have respect for those who respect themselves and respect all of their time. Yes he's pointed and clipped, but - especially when you are running your own business and your time is precious - this is some much appreciated by the likes of me.

The fact is that most people want to be nice and lie to your face than appear to be mean and tell you no. But that only encourages me to waste time on them and not go on to the next guy. Tell me like it is and I'll live. I'm a big boy. Don't let me delude myself anymore than I have to.

Stay You.
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Justine Timberlake and Me

2007-02-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

So I was hiding in bed today with the snow piled up around our cars when the Divine Mrs. M. turns on the Ellen Degenerese (sp?) show. They flashed to a thing called Justin Timberlake declaring in melody that he was going to bring back the sexy. And I thought.... No. That was MY New Year's resolution.

I was going to bring back the sexy! So there's another dream shot to hell. Now back on 'bringing back the slovenly.'

Stay You.
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The Postal Service and Me

2007-02-06T09:30:00.000-05:00

The unofficial, as I learned motto of the United States Postal Service is:
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Our offices mailman just dropped off some items and I was reminded of just how stupid that motto is. In fact, it's abusive.

This poor guy is freezing his nethers off walking around the west side of Cincinnati in 12 degree cold sans wind chill. For what? So some old ladies can get their Cat Fancier magazine? To deliver 100 lbs of junk mail? Look, I'd rather get my direct tv bill a day late than have this poor civil servant catch pneumonia and die. I'm a small government kind of guy and I hate to waste public money, but come on guys - take the day off...with pay.

Neither snow nor rain...that's stupid.

Stay You.
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Thoreau and Me

2007-02-05T19:01:00.000-05:00

Thoreau said most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Not me. I'm a big old bitch. I complain about anything and everything...and I'm still one of the quietest guy around.

Stay You.
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Howard's Still Here

2007-02-01T16:32:00.000-05:00

It's not that I don't want to blog. I just haven't the energy, time or interest lately. The end of last year was a bit hectic. Christmas was expensive. January was just a recovery time. But I still need some time (However, my writing this probably signals the return of this blog.)

Plus, I'm tired of writing. In January I did 10 stories for the Enquirer, 6 for a community newspaper on the Ohio side of the river and 2 more for a paper south of the Ohio that's not hired me before.

That makes 18 stories in a month. Not much but considering it's on top of my regular day job, and investment business and family commitments, but it's not bad either. Plus, I've joined a writing group. This one. I've a stirring of interest in writing fiction again so I joined up with them to try to flame those long dead embers.

I also haven't even felt like reading blogs. I find all of you charming as always, but I just don't find myself clicking on those links.

another thing keeping me from blogging is political burn-out and the fact that I don't think I have anything interesting to say. Nothing original. Nothing humorous.

Maybe diet has something to do with it. On top of continuing to work out, I'm eating better so maybe I have less stress which I sometimes dealt with in blogging. Oh, I have lost 30 pounds in the last couple months. I've also started using a face cream. I look downright you.

Maybe someday i'll show you my guns, or pecs, or my six pack or whatever phrase the closeted homosexual guys who work out hard with other guys so they have an excuse to look at other guys say.

Stay You.
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Billy Harper - Leave Me Alone

2007-01-29T21:56:00.000-05:00

This is for folks in the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky:

Has anyone else been getting been getting pounded with Harper for Governor e-mails? I think I deleted 5 today alone. I don't even read them. I just get irritated with them.

Just curious.

Stay You.
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Happy Citizenship Day to My Family!

2007-01-29T08:58:00.000-05:00

On this day 73 years ago, my grandfather, Lorne McEwen, became a citizen of these here United State.

Doesn't he look happy?

Stay You.
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Hello, I Must Be Going

2007-01-23T09:28:00.000-05:00

I'm reading a bio of Grouch Marx. He sang it best:

Hello, I must be going

I cannot stay

I came to say

I must be going

I'm glad I came

But just the same

I must be going... Ta-Ta!

I'll stay a week or two

I'll stay the summer through

But I am telling you

I must be going

Stay You.
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Barbara Boxer was Right About Condi

2007-01-15T14:05:00.000-05:00

I ran out of gas half way through this one and am too tired to edit it. Remember: my blog is a sketch pad. Not art suitable for framing.

Although I'm tickled that Condi has pursued the feminist dream and feminist dreamer beat her over the head with it.

But she was right - in a way. Having children is a fundamental human experience. From Fred MacMurrays of the world to the deadest of dead beat dad's, we may react different, but about 95% of us have kids. I've thought it to" What's up with her? Why not her? Is it biological? Physiological? Mental?

It's....strange for a woman not to have kids.

I think it's admirable. If a woman or her husband or both are not cut out for kids - thanks for not trying to impose your self-centered/unfulfilled needs on a kid your going to be sorry you had. It'd be cruel to have a kid just to fit into societies norms. Just as it's cruel to ahve a kid because you couldn't be bothered to pick up a 3 pack of Trojans. Not conceiving a kid for good reasons almost proves to me you'd be a good parent.

But again, having kids is a fundamental experience that changes you. But I'll put my trust in Condi to protect my kids than Barbara Boxer.

It reminds me (hold on for a leap here) of those that try to prove that the 17th Earl of Oxford wrote Hamlet, The Tempest, MacBeth, and all the others, because some simple country boy from Stratford-on-Avon wouldn't have the mental capacity to do it.

No, Shakespeare didn't have the life experience as the Earl, but he developed and ear and a sense of timing and pacing that allowed him to rise about those with aristocratic educations. And Condi is able to function just as well without performing a biological the biological imperative of procreation. (I made that Shakespeare leap because his queen, Liz I, did ok without popping out any kids. There's an Armada at the bottom of the English channel as proof.)

Whether its Boxer beating up Condi or someone's discrediting Shakespeare - it's snobbery. Shakespeare isn't a one-off. Lincoln did wrote beautifully and governed ok having only travelled a bit of the interior American continent before being elected.

Stay You.
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Ru-dy! Ru-dy! Ru-dy!

2007-01-11T14:59:00.000-05:00

I've said it before: He helped save the capital of the word - twice.

Delroy Murdock seems to think the can sit around the campfire and sign Kum-Ba-Ya with all the colors of the rainbow. I agree.

Stay You.
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Sleeping on the Job

2007-01-10T13:24:00.000-05:00

We have a new Kyocera color printer that "sleeps" when it isn't used in a while. A little black and white screen says "Sleep".

I don't like that.

First, I hate to wake people up who are sleeping. I don't want to feel guilty about waking up a printer.

Second, no body and no thing should sleep or "Sleep" on the job. It should read "Loaf". I called Kyocera to see if I can change it and to offer my opinion but they didn't take me serious.

Stay You.
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Paul Hackett - Enforcer

2007-01-10T07:59:00.000-05:00

Former Congressional Candidate and Daily Kos pin-up Paul Hackett might be a little bit of a lefty nut, but I think I like him more after reading this.

At 4:30 in the morning he chased down some youths who drove through his fence. He caught up with them, had the get out of their car and when the police arrived, they were spread eagle in the dirt.

It got me thinking about manhood. This is just a guy protecting his property. If the he'd had to have killed them, I'd most likely be ok with that.

At a recent high school basketball game on our side of town, a player was called on a foul. The kid exposed himself and screamed obscenities. There were children and adults of all ages in the crowd. I asked; noone did anything. Shouldn't a man have stood up and knocked the kid down? (the kid stood about 6' 2") Isn't that what men are for?

Now, I haven't taken a punch in a good long time, even then it wasn't a hard one - and it still hurt, but I keep reading about the coursening of our society. I think if men would stand up to a few folks - we'd get alot more polite.

Stay You.
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Oriana Fallaci and Dolly Parton

2007-01-09T16:27:00.000-05:00

What do Oriana Fellaci and Dolly Parton have in common? The fact that Mark Steyn wrote about each in a thoughtful and factual column in the last few days. How does Steyn do that?

In this obit on La Fallaci, he reminds me why I liked this woman - although she seems like a pain (chain smoking hard core lefty). While western (classic) liberals rolled over for the Muslim race baiters and extremist after 9/11 by not forcibly investigating madrasas and mosques and other centers of terrorist planning, she called the culture of the middle east was it was. And was reviled for it. Cathy Seipp got a nice column out of it here telling the story of someone trying to purchase one of La Fallaci's books in a San Francisco lefty book story. "We don't carry books by fascists," was the clerks reply. It reminded me of how the feminists in our country went all wobbly knees defending Bill Clinton's serial molestation of women. But America had no Oriana Fellaci - she would have been crucified anyway. But it at least revealed what the professional feminist are...

Here, Steyn tells how Dolly Parton made wrote a nice hit called "I will Always Love You" then made $6 million off it when it was warbled and tortured by Whitney "Sniff" Houston. Whitney's versoin was finally used as the campaign song for Saddam Hussein's final election. Not bad for a poor girl from Pigeon Forge.

But how does Steyn know these things? How does he write so well about them? How does his brain have that great a span of interest? And, most importantly, how could I ever come anywhere close to that?

BTW, Steyn dropped out of high school. He only turned to writing in an attempt to pay the bills in between DJ gigs.

Steyn's a jerk.

Stay You.
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Ice Skating

2007-01-08T16:53:00.000-05:00

I love the look on number 2 daughter's face as she earnestly tries to skate for the first time. She's the red in the rainbow sweater I'm looking at.

It was the first time for The Divine, Number 1 daughter, and myself. It wasn't nearly as hard as I was expecting. Both girls are wanting me to take them back...but this weekend was too warm and then sickness hit the family.

Maybe next weekend.

The great thing about live in the 21st Century is that we can go on-line and see how crowded the rink is here. We can be downtown in 7 minutes - neat. But downtowns can be tempting. On side of the rink is Macy's and Tiffany's. Another side is a burger place microbrew. Another side is a nice hotel with extra fluffy pillows.

Stay You.
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When's Pelosi's Playboy Centerfold?

2007-01-05T09:36:00.000-05:00

My incoming e-mails and blog comments have exploded - ok, maybe not exploded - mushroomed? - with thoughts on the attractiveness of Speaker Pelosi. Consensus seems to be that she's a "babe" and/or "highly doable".

It's hats off to her and the Dems. I always had a problem with Speaker Hastert. I've said it before: why didn't someone get that guy some contacts, spend more than $11 on a haircut and knock the donut out his hands?

But with media orgasm that was this week I think is the first step in the oft-repeated, classic Dem overplaying of their hand. When don't they do it? Is it because the media treatment blinds them to simple taste?

They are going to overplay this and here's where we're heading: Their agenda will fall flat. Somehow Bush is going to start smelling like a rose. The Dems will tear themselves up over how to dump THE FIRST WOMAN SPEAKER (a similar situation to the CBS Evening News) but they finally will. Pelosi will try to resusitate her career and feel "empowered" by a tasteful, heavily airbrushed layout in Playboy.

I'll buy a copy.

Stay You.
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Happy New Year

2007-01-03T11:13:00.000-05:00

I'm tapped. Again. Christmas was as stressful as usual but we had some other issues going on that really tapped my psyche. Now I just want to do nothing. But it's the new year and everyone else wants to get things going...at least until Jan. 18. Me? I plan on having a slow weekend to recharge: do somethings around the house, catch on on stuff I've been hiding from.

Then I'll take on the new year. More consistent blogging will begin then. Until then, please be patient.

Stay You.
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John Edwards (Swoon)

2006-12-29T11:55:00.000-05:00

John Edwards for President? What's this guy done? Whatev'.

Last November I did an interview with John Edwards (and Steve Forbes) when he visited NKU. Pat Crowley was on vacation or something and they tossed me in. Why? I don't know. But I ran with it. I blogged about it here (there's pictures) and my story from that interview is here.

Enjoy.

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Eating My Socks

2006-12-29T09:02:00.000-05:00

No matter the shoe I wear, for the past four days, my right shoe has been eating my right sock. I take 20 steps and it's completely bunched up in my shoe. I'm doing nothing different.

Why is this happening to me?

Stay You.
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Izzy's In Da House

2006-12-28T12:25:00.000-05:00

I think I'm done with the blogging for the year. I've reached critical mass as it pertains to job worries, pressures, assignments, etc. It's time to submerge myself into a mental cacoon and be reborn a vibrant wealth producing income generating imago on January 2. Unfortuately, my cacoon will not be undisturbed until Sunday at the earliest. That gives me on day to rehab my mental self.

But before I go, I must admit I've been remiss in acknowledgeing the birth of the Izzy. Welcome.

Stay You.
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Happy Christmas

2006-12-26T15:57:00.000-05:00

Just about a perfect Christmas!

Santa brought Daughter #1 a telescope and a flypen. We went down to the river and looking into the windows of downtown condos on Christmas Day. As for the flypen - I'm thinking she won't lose it for a few months.

Santa brought Daughter #2 seven of the Twelve Dancing Princesses - along with the Twelve Dancing Princesses computer game and Twelve Dancing Princesses DVD. You know you've had enough nog when you start wondering which of the Twelve Dancing Princesses is most likely to....

Santa brought The Divine Mrs. M. a pair of earrings. I either scored a good hit or she scored an Oscar winning performance. She liked them. Nothing stirs up my feelings of inadequacy more than standing in front of a jewelry counter konwing what I buy COULD RUIN CHRISTMAS! Not that I've ever ruined Christmas for her, but its always been a nagging fear. As a child, I regularly RUINED CHRISTMAS!

Santa brought me both of The Killers CDs. From what I can tell - they look and sound pretty gay, but hey, what's got two thumbs and loves to dance to synth rock? This guy! Also, they're the best British band to come out of Las Vegas in years. Next, I got the bestest gift of all. 411 minutes of pure silliness - with pure unedited violence! God I'm going to need this.

Stay You.
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Re-Gifting

2006-12-21T09:39:00.000-05:00

We all do it, but how 'bout the Blessed Virgin Mary?

You thing she looking into that box of Myrhh and said. "Myrhh, what am I going to do with this? Joe, let's send it to you mom. She still thinks I'm a tramp."

"She doesn't think you're a tramp, Mare. I told you she's never believed any case of immaculate conception."

"Yeah, well...."

"Yeah, well....the baby needs fed."

Stay You.
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Two Stories

2006-12-18T17:12:00.000-05:00

Here's two stories:
One on the local community college taking care of the kids of students
One on some profs taking their kids overseas to learn.
Not much to add from me. I'm tired.

Stay You.
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Enough Dead Jews: What the West Taught the Middle East

2006-12-18T08:23:00.000-05:00

Here's the one thing the "west" (i.e. liberal democratic society) has taught the middle east...and other assorted thugs. We taught them that you gotta at least pretend to do crazy ass things. That doesn't mean that they use reason, just the cloak of reasoning makes thuggish behavior easier to sell.

That's why Castro and saddam got "re-elected" with 99% of the vote and 99% of the turnout. And if you review the US news items reporting these "elections" they were done so without much grain of salt. If you like literature, check out the first (maybe second) scene, Act 1 of Henry V (A fine play that parrellels GWB), Prince Hal's (GWB to some) lawyer goes through a long and meandering and ultimately funny exposition on how it's totally acceptable for England to invade France.

And so we come to the Tehran Holocaust investigation conference.

The Iranian government is not doing it to be mean. They are doing it to provide a reason for an action. The action? The Nuking Israel.

The only reason for the WW2 victors to support the establishment of an Israeli state was the Holocaust, if the Holocast didn't happen, their would be no need for Israel. If the Holocaust didn't happen, then the establishment of Israel is a farce. It would have no right or reason to exist.

And don't write the Conference off as a bunch of nuts. Tehran is a modern city filled with academics. Smart people can want crazy things. To quote marge simpson 'people do all kinds of crazy things - like eat at Hardees."

Our elites have pretty much bought into Israel being illigitimate. A former US presdient has a book called 'Palestine: Peace not apartheid'. No mention of Israel there? There already is a Palastinian state: Jordan. On the other side of the spectrum, a former secretary of state, James Baker (remember when people said he was in the pocket of the Saudis? But now he's ok), helped author that silly Iraqi Study Group Report. Here's Mark Steyn on the ISG's call for a multi-national support group that's suppose to help us out of Iraq:

Oh, but lest you think there are no minimum admission criteria to James Baker's "Support Group," relax, it's a very restricted membership: Arabs, Persians, Chinese commies, French obstructionists, Russian assassination squads. But no Jews. Even though Israel is the only country to be required to make specific concessions -- return the Golan Heights, etc. Indeed, insofar as this document has any novelty value, it's in the Frankenstein-meets-the-Wolfman sense of a boffo convergence of hit franchises: a Vietnam bug-out, but with the Jews as the designated fall guys. Wow. That's what Hollywood would call "high concept."

So even our own elites are working to delegitimize Israel's existance?

So the arab world has a "rational" reason to deny Israel's existence, the "west" is being tee'd up to believe the same thing - or at least that Israel is an irritation.

I'm thinking we're looking at a 21st Century with more another - far greater - Holocaust. Are we going to have to number them?

And when Israel is gone, will the Arab world become happy and rational and peaceful? Or will is want the return of Al-Andalus next?

They have their reasons. They have their justifications. They have the technology.

Boom!

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The Olive Garden Squirts

2006-12-15T15:05:00.000-05:00

H/T Drudge : Over 250 sick after eating at Indiana Olive Garden

Not to be flippant, but if you choose to eat at an Olive Garden in Indianapolis - or any city for that matter - you deserve the rumbles...the heaves...and the squirts...and the clenches where you have to do that penguin walk to the potty. The place sucks.

Right now, somewhere in some part of any decent sized city there's some Neopolitan guy standing in an empty restaurant that he sunk his life savings into thinking "WTF is 'Hospitaliano'?

Go help him out and eat there this weekend. His place won't be situated anywhere near the long string of "TGI McFunsters" that every town has.

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Conan and Aunt Winnie

2006-12-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

One of my NRO favorite's John J. Miller has piece in the Journal today about Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian. This, of course, reminded me of a crippled aunt from Pennsylvania.

She was a great aunt actually. The sister-in-law of my paternal grandfather. Her name was Winnie. I first met her in Canada. We were spreading her husband's ashes on a hillside next to the family's cabin - we were spreading them from a Hills Brother's Coffee can.

She was confined to a wheelchair. A hottie in her youth - I saw the pics - at about 30 her body started curling up from some severe arthritis. Years went by. She raised a family. A couple years before I met her - she was in her 70s then - she got stuck - actually stuck - the house. She couldn't get her wheelchair moving. While sitting there trying to pass the time until help came, she managed to pick up one of her grown son's old Conan the Barbarian book - she was addicted.

"They're just great," she said. "Lotsa killin' and fighting."

How do you not like a woman like that? When not reading her Conan books, she guilted me into playing scrabble.

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Attn: Kentucky Bloggers

2006-12-12T15:56:00.000-05:00

Political Notes: Long-time political fixture and long-time campbell County Coroner Doc. Fred Stine died on Sunday. Article here. To relate it statewide, he is the father-in-law of Sen Katie Stine.

He was a nice man who always faked that he knew me. Last time I saw him, he was with one of his daughters and two sons and assorted grandkids eating Chinese.

He proved his worth during the Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire.

Nice man. RIP.

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Kids Reshuffled/SUVs

2006-12-12T08:07:00.000-05:00

I did my first piece with a co-byline last night. It appeared today. The regular professional reporter couldn't make a meeting so she asked me to go. It's here. She wrote up the basics and I plugged in some quotes I got from the meeting and confirmed a few things.

It's about a school district having to reassign kids after having closed an old building and built a new one a few miles south. Admittedly I went into this with some bias. the last thing I really wanted to do on a Monday night was go listen to a bunch of suburbanites whine about having to drive their eight passenger SUVs few extra miles to drop off their 2 kids, but after listening to them state their positions and seeing how upset they were, I softened.

When I got home The Divine Mrs. M. was watching that new Elaine from Seinfeld show. It was about - SUVs! I hate to be on the side of the environuts but they just seem to me in the words of my old Chinese boss - "widicurous". They're just silly.

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My Fraternity: Delta Sigma Pi

2006-12-10T10:37:00.000-05:00

I did this article on NKU's Pi Kappa Alpha, the "Pikes", where they helped out their president's mom who has cancer. It got me thinking about my own fraternity: Delta Sigma Pi

I didn't get alot of academic encouragement other than "get good grades or else" or self-esteem building growing up. I knew I had a little bit of brains but I was a bit lazy which looked to some like stupidity and I always had that nagging doubt - "Maybe I am bit dumb? I do get lost easily." Recently, I was watching a movie where a girl made a mix tape for a guy (Do they still do that? Maybe a mix playlist?) and I thought of a time a girl in high school gave me a mix tape. I had no idea why. I listened to it a bit in the car on the way home that day, but it was full of bad 80s pop. When she asked about it a few days later I let her know the songs were crap. This was senior year. So maybe I was stupid - she was hot.

I must have gotten into Ball State under their Clerical Error Program because my high school grades were pretty bad - 1 or 2 As total, a few Bs, mostly Cs with a few Ds. My rank was in the bottom of the class of 600 or so. The number 382 sticks in my head for some reason.

At college, second semester freshman year I pledged Delta Sigma Pi. This is not a social fraternity but limited to business majors - and they accept chicks. No frat house - they had an office in the building by the lounge area. They did have keggers at member's houses and apartments. There was a fair amount of drinking (The Divine Mrs. M. still remembers me cracking an oak door with my head), but at that time at this point, they were the smarter business students and they just assumed I was smart to which made me feel smart. I started to work and study and get good grades.

They were also tapped into the faculty pretty well so if I ever had any problems - late papers, non-attendance - were forgiven. Again, the profs just assumed I was smart as well since I was with the Delta Sigs. The assistant dean at the time was also very encourageing to me in particular. He gave me a key to the business building and a key to the elevator - usually only faculty had these, but he just one day gave them to me. A few times I had the dean get me into a class without the right prerequisites. I'm sure this was because of being a member of my frat.

I'm not sure I would have stuck with school if I hadn't joined. Delta Sigma Pi gave me a lot of confidence which probably helped me land the Divine Mrs. M. later that summer. Once she and I were together, I was done with other women. She was on a full ride academic scholarship so she had to keep her grades up. That sucked me into working harder - if I wanted to be with her I had to be studying.

But to this day - after earning my two degrees and the CFA designation and writing a book (remember that?) and building a small investment business, and accidently becoming a freelance writer for a major newspaper and some magazines, I still think of myself as a "dumb guy". That insecurity is built into my core.

I'm Rainman smart on some things - inconsequential things - but I'm oblivious to alot. I live in fear that the limited success I have had is a mirage. When I sit around the table, my natural instinct is to just assume everyone else there is many magnatudes smarter than myself.

I try to be successful, to garner some kind of achievement. I think there's a knowledge of success that I should comprehend. But between me and it, there seems to be a gauze over my understanding. Everything is fuzzy like those shots of Liz Taylor in those White Diamond commercials. It's my own private Allegory of the Cave. Maybe it will always be there. I'd gladly bit into the forbidden fruit if I could just find that there tree of knowledge.

I think my own drive (it's more like an amble) for success of whatever kind is just an attempt to prove those first 18 years wrong...to prove them wrong - but maybe that's in vain. To prove those 18 years wrong is to deny my own existence in a way. Maybe they aren't wrong, but just are. It's part of my and what I am. Proving them wrong would be like proving gravity wrong.

Does any of this make sense? A smart guy would know.

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Sex Offenders

2006-12-07T09:25:00.001-05:00

Sex Offenders

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Sex Offenders

2006-12-07T09:25:00.000-05:00

Sex Offenders

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Brickhouse

2006-12-07T08:38:00.000-05:00

I didn't know what a Nicole Ritchie was until stuck on a treadmill with nothing but a woman's/celelbrity stalker magazine.

I thought it funny that her father is known for singing "Brickhouse" and she's...not. More of an outhouse.

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Courage

2006-12-04T18:50:00.000-05:00

What the Cowardly Lion lusted for it and Dan Rather punctuated with. Courage.

I'm not sure if I have any. I'm thinking I don't. I've never been tested. I've been in fights. But those were mostly fuel by liquor and boredom. I've been thinking of soldiers, airmen, and sailors. What they must go through? How do they muster that courage? Especially Marines. I've been dealing alot with a Marine father in law. How do these guys do what they do?

I worry about not paying a bill. So I decided to test myself.

Depending on traffic, about 25% of the time, I have to go through what many consider a bad neighborhood. I drive the west to east length of Liberty Street - where downtown meets bad 1960s public policy. I once had the cops tackle a guy on the hood of my Saturn. Nobody paid any attention to me. I drove on.

Anyway, to test my bravery, I decided I'd roll down the window and sing aloud to something very white. Country grates on my nerves, so this was mostly alternative - adult aternative to be specific. And some Beatles. Pretty white, I thought. I've been slowly working my way traffic light by traffic light. The furthest I've made it is three blocks. That's only because they were all green. Stopped at a light is worst. If you're not surrounded on both sides by cars, then there's a pedestrian in no hurry to go anywhere peering into your car.

Anyway, I've failed so far. Last Thursday I drove down that stretch again. I went classic this time. Golden Earring's Radar Love. No matter what the race or creed or sexual orientation - who doesn't like 1970s Dutch rockers?

So I belting it out. It's not a sond for stop and go traffic, but I'm make my way. I lasted up until "One more rader lover gone.." and was about to launch into my verbal rendition of that ripping part "When I'm feeling lonely....". I'm even doing the guitar action. Then I feel the stares. They are burning into me. Curiousity trumps Courage. I know I shouldn't but I look over to my driver's side. There - in a tricked out Buick La Sabre with spinners spinning are two urban youths complete with a set of grills and oversized coats laughing their asses off at me.

I couldn't take it. I broke down laughing, then made quick right as they went forward. I drove around the block; windows rolled up. Quiet. The radio wasn't even on.

I hope Uncle Sam never needs me. I can't even take wounded pride.

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"Quit Touching Stuff!"/The Doctor Waiting Game

2006-12-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

Anytime I have to wait I get curious. This drives The Divine Mrs. M. nuts.

While picking out caskets for her mothers funeral in the upstairs "Gallery o' Caskets and Urns" at the funeral home we were left alone for a while. I started poking around the urns. I'd never touched one. (As a teenager, I'd help spread the ashes of a never met paternal uncle on a Canadian hillside, but he was kept in a Hills Brothers coffee can - much to my mother's chagrin - not in an urn. I'd already touched a Hills Brothers coffee can. It felt just like a Folgers can.)

Anyway, I picked some urns up to see how much they weighed, how were they finished inside, what they were made of. They ranged from the classic urn shape to little boxes with a sleek stainless steel design (The DeLorean of urns?). Anyway, it was an emotional time and The Divine politely requested that I "Quit touching stuff" and sit my ass down. I think there was something in there about the attention span of a four-year old.

The place where I probably do touch stuff too much is the doctors office...but they always make me wait so damn long. I play with the little thingy that they look into your ears with. I try to figure out the use for any other instruments they have. If I find a stethescope, I've hit jackpot. One time, I saw something that caught my attention in the back of a floor cabinet. It was hard to reach and I had half my body in the cabinet trying to reach it. I can't remember what it was but I do remember the look on the doctor's face when he walked in.

"Sorry. I got bored," was all I could explain.

But I've turned this around on the doctors. For some reason, the doctors I use always bring me back into a little room, have a nurse take my weight, temp, and b.p. and then leave me to wait. The last time - a 9 a.m. appointment - the actual doctor didn't come in until 9:50.

So I taught her a lesson. I've done this before. I allow them to let me sit in that room for 20 minutes. Then I go to work.

Everything in the bottom shelves get nicely rearranged to the top. Everything in the right cabinet gets place carefully in the left. If there are cabinets on each side of the room - they get switched. The cotton balls, tongue depressors, alcohol swipes, bottles of iodine, needles are all neatly rearranged. When the MD goes for a needle, he'll have to open 3 doors. HA! There's no destruction. Nothing harmed. Just the same level of inconvience that I experienced in waiting redirected toward my medical practioner.

I think if we all did this that the doctors would start providing a little better service. And if nothing else, that's what they get for making me wait. Or they'd start locking the cabinets.

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Nancy Pelosi is HOT!

2006-11-29T17:04:00.000-05:00

For lack of anything to post, here's what I've decided to state: Nancy Pelosi is HOT!

It's not like I'm cowering in my cube having elicit fantasies about Speaker of the Future...but for a 66 year old grandmother whose had 5 kids - that ain't at all bad.

I'd take her over Hillary. I'd probably take her over Ol' Crazy Eyes, but just because she give me the creeps.

Call me shallow, but that's what I've got today.

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My Politician Christmas Card Game

2006-11-28T10:14:00.000-05:00

When I get Christmas cards from politicos, here's the game I play. The cards usually honor the birth of the Saviour by showing pictures of the politician's family and pets - all grinning sappily and uncomfortably in front of some fake scene that seemed appropriate. Anyway, I open these up and try to figure out the following:

1. Is the wife a drunk or pill popper?
2. Which daughter will put out?
3. If and/or which son is the gay one?
4. Which son-in-law is the loser son-in-law?
5. Finally, can we find something embarrassing in the background? - I once spotted on an elegant bookshelf in a Rep's background 10+ Jackie Collins novels.

I then have my wife do the same and we compare our answers.

Last night was the card of a Kentucky Congressman - a nice tri-fold affair.

I can't wait for the next one.

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Where's Howard Been?

2006-11-22T15:48:00.000-05:00

Three articles printed since my last post.

Ever wonder what happens when professionals give themselves awards? I know the 37 music industry award shows are proof enough, but here's further evidence from the world of architecture. Here's the award winner itself. Ahhh, I remember the old college days of wandering through...concrete.

Ever wonder what happens when a woman is thrown from a second story window onto her head? Sometimes they go to school.

Ever wonder what happens when a tech school puts on a poetry jam. Come on out next Wednesday to find out. Details here.

So where have I been? I went to bed Thursday night about midnight. 3:00 a.m. my father-in-law called to say The Divine Mrs. M.'s mom had died. The one I wrote about here.

The Divine is fine. Kids are fine. Father-in-law will be fine. We're all ready to be at home.

It's been almost of week of doing the business of death and mourning in the modern world. Strange, but there's toll-free lines, CD roms, and mega-corporations to deal with. Maybe more about it later.

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Doggie Bag

2006-11-16T15:05:00.000-05:00

I see no problem to ask for a take home box when eating at a nice restaurant. I paid for it, I'm taking it. However, don't call it a doggie bag. The executive chef worked hard on selecting that particular meal. The chef de cuisine worked hard executing it. And you're calling it a doggie bag? You're implying that you're feeding it to your dog?

Maybe a drunk sous-chef should have spit in it.

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Friedman/Pelosi

2006-11-16T15:03:00.000-05:00

Lifelong libertarian San Francisco resident Milton Friedman dies the day his U. S. Rep - San francisco values uberliberal Nancy Pelosi is elected Speaker! Coincidence?

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Big Sug and Uncle Milton

2006-11-16T13:39:00.000-05:00

Blogging has always been a way for me has always been a way to work off nervous mental energy. It is therapy. But I've been blogging less lately...and with less enthusiasm. Basically, I have less nervous mental energy. Almost four weeks ago, I quit eating as much sugar. I've eliminated all processed sugars and reduced all other. I've also quit most processed foods. I haven't had for beloved chocolate at all. And I feel great. The best I've felt in a long time. From the second day of elinimating it, my normally roiling acid spewwing stomach is downright pacific. My rolaids are getting dusty. Sugar highs and lows are gone of course.

I'm not an anti-sugar militant. Down with Big Sug.

Sadly, I just read that Milton Friedman has died. I think any conservative - and anyone wit an interest in economics - should mark this day. He was my first real economic hero - ok, my only. His pop book Free to Choose is dated but still amazingly relavant. His thesis: freedom is the only way. There's a companion PBS series to the book - the irony was not lost on him that is also marvelous.

Something from friedman to use in everyday: When pundits say an overheating economy will cause inflation to rise, you should snicker at them. His A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, with Anna Schwartz proved it. Inflation everywhere and always a monetory phenomenon. Too much money - not too much work or economic activity - creates inflations. That is: the government overprinting money is the problem. Not us. The Philips Curve is bullshit.

His Money Mischief is a sometimes funny history of money that illustrates again and again how government playing around with money screws things up. He linked FDR's socialization of western state silver mines with causing the rise of Communist China. For moonbat lefties who have no conception of their history, he also takes on the original moonbat - William Jennings Bryant.

God bless Milton Friedman.

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Party....in the EXTREME

2006-11-12T11:40:00.000-05:00

Two Enquirer articles the last couple days. Here's one on an Extreme Home Party. Their website is here. Looking for Christmas gifts? This is the place. Want to keep your wife happy and empty your wallet at the same time? You can't beat this place.

Want to give to a good cause? Read this story. Long time readers know that the scholarship if named after my church's pastor who died earlier this year. A pic of him is here. Really, if you're interested in giving to a charity, give it a thought.

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Where's the Staples?

2006-11-09T10:51:00.000-05:00

The problem with stocking your office with supplies from Staples is that when you need staples and look in the supply closet for staples everything says Staples so it's hard to determine where the staples are because your eye keeps focus on the Staples paper clips or Staples binder clips or Staples post-it notes. The staples you're wanting to refill your stapler to staple a client report also says Staples like everything else from Staples but then in smaller letters it says staples. That's how you know that particular Staples box contains staples versus all the other Staples boxes that don't contain staples, but other Staples products.

I still can't find the staples...from Staples.

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Talking Smack/Makin' Lemonade

2006-11-09T10:31:00.000-05:00

Hey, you third district Republicans down in Louisville, what goes on? We did our job up here in the 4th - Geoff Davis is heading back to DC! Where'd you guys drop the ball? Come on! My thumb and forefinger are forming a particular shape.

As for the loss of the House and Senate. Oh, well. The Republic will survive. There's certain advantages to divided government. Maybe Hastert will let Bush have his veto pen back. For the past few years spending has been nuts, gubbermint programs have been spreading like kudzu, and I'm tiring of hear Republicans say "religion of peace". Oh, and the line at the San Luis Tienda down the street is getting longer with folks who don't have green cards but do have WIC cards. No, that last one doesn't bother me much - mostly because I'm not sure it's true, but when a guy named Ahmed jumps a fence with a sack full of anthrax just behind Juan and Javier with a sack full of the American dream, it'll be the fault of Bush and a Republican Congress.

Maybe the Party will get things sorted out. Maybe they'll turn to conservatism. Maybe they'll become the party that was when I was a kid. Dems lite. At least now, they have something to run against for '08.

It's always easier to be the complainers v. being the ones governing.

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Winning Over Your Mother-in-law

2006-11-08T08:24:00.000-05:00

That's the headline CiN Weekly gave my piece for this week - hard version is here, direct link here - please comment. It opens:

I went out for a walk last week when I saw six women beating up my mother-in-law. As I watched the pummeling, her neighbor said, "Well, aren't you going to help?"

"No," I said. "Six of them is enough."

Or how about, "How do you stop your mother-in-law from drowning?"

"Take your foot off her head."

Mother-in-law jokes are fun. I've enjoyed them. I've told them. But now they're not so funny. My mother-in-law is in the intensive care unit.

As for the election, I'll make some lemonade tomorrow (milk, milk, lemonade...oh, never mind). I walked for Geoff Davis. He worked hard. I knew he was when he took the time to call me on my cell phone to thank for last week for the work I hadn't yet done that coming weekend. Last night at the TV, he looked about dead.

The Divine Mrs. M. drove back from Ft. Wayne yesterday from visiting her ailing mother so she could vote. She gave me a report after she voted and the General Manager of the KY side of the Enquirer posted it here (scrool down).

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