Just Do It America

People are funny. Not funny ha-ha, but funny peculiar.

I know a guy who is into recycling. Really into it. Nothing – nothing – gets thrown away in his house, office, or presence without scrutiny, argument, and, if necessary, research. Is that recyclable, compostable, or landfill? What plastics can you recycle? In which cities? If your city doesn’t take them here’s a list of recycling centers. This one is on your way to work, but this other one stays open an hour later and also takes glass. You can’t take hazardous waste there but it’s collected by the city once a year. Or if you live in this other city you can call the sanitation department 48 hours before your normal garbage pickup day and they’ll take it. But they won’t take tires. Or you can go to a designated collection center, but you have to bring your water bill to verify your address. Electrical garbage can be taken to Home Depot to be recycled. Used motor oil can go to Jiffy Lube.

Do you have any idea how much effort it takes this guy to get through one day?

People are the same about organic gardening, or finding restaurants that use vegetarian refried beans. They go out of their way all the time for some quirky personal philosophy. They only eat raw food. They only use cloth diapers. They only listen to pre-1983 Eric Clapton songs. They do their research. They go out of their way. And they spend a little money. It’s a passion. It’s a passion for doing what you believe is the right thing to do – an important thing to do.

There’s been so much talk lately about our economy. What’s the right thing to do? What are the important things to do? Our elected officials believe the answer is to blame the other guy. It’s not. The answer is to get more Americans working. Our elected officials – even with the American Jobs Act – aren’t going to do it. I’m sorry, but they just aren’t. We have to do it ourselves. Check out the story at the other end of this internet link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/MadeInAmerica/made-america-resource-guide-find-american-companies/story?id=13057404

You want to put Americans to work? Buy American stuff. You don’t have to be a maniac like my recycling friend, and I’m not saying “buy only American made stuff”, but buy more American made sutff. Buy an American made cutting board for your kitchen. Or an organic pillow for your bed. Or wool throw blanket for your family room. Buy the stuff you would normally buy, but just buy it from America. Light bulbs. File folders. You may have to go out of your way. You may have to do a little research. And you may have to spend a little money. It might be worth it. Regardless of how you feel about Warren Buffet and his secretary’s taxes, or Obamacare, or we’re-regulated-to-death, just do it. Do it regardless of who’s to blame on Capitol Hill. Take it up as a bit of a passion.

Seriously, doesn’t it seem like a reasonable thing to do?

Ah sweet controversy. How we love thee.

We love to kill people here in Texas. But make no mistake, this is no Hansel and Gretel affair here. Turns out that unlike the wicked witch, we don’t like feeding the people before we kill them.

A recent outlandish last meal request from a Texas death row inmate has caused quite a stir. A Texas state senator demanded that the Department of Criminal Justice stop the practice of allowing inmates whatever they want as a last meal. The Department agreed. So no more crazy last meal requests. Are we inhumane? Are we wasting money? And so the arguments drone on.

To my way of thinking the best way to get rid of the last meal dilemma is to get rid of the death penalty. Two birds, one stone. But that's another argument for another time.

The argument run out there by the aforementioned Texas state senator this week was "hey, these criminals didn't give their victims the courtesy of a last meal request, why should they get one?" True enough, but there's a couple of issues here. (1) are you sure the victim didn’t eat what he wanted prior to being killed? (2) Are you sure the criminal is the one who killed the victim? Absolutely sure? Because you're about to absolutely kill him. (3) the senator’s argument is somewhere on a slippery slope that ends with the criminal being killed in the same manner in which he killed the victim. In this case dragging behind a pick-up truck. That's a little too eye-for-an-eye for the Christians here in Texas who want to humanely kill the person BUT want to deny them a last meal request to show them, one last time, who’s boss.

I guess in the end, I just don't care. I don't think it's a big deal if they do get a final meal request, and I don't think it’s a big deal if they don’t. I'm thinking a last meal - OK - a total binge - No. But why the hell should we feed them anyway? Save a few more dollars by cutting him off a week or so before killing him. Why not? We're going to kill him anyway and if he’s starving to death maybe he’ll appreciate it. Lately the prisoners themselves seem to be making a joke of it by ordering crazy last meals. So I can see why people are offended, but what are you going to do if you're offended? Kill the guy? Well… yes. Yes you are.

Perhaps the guards should just take the guy down to Golden Corral for an afternoon and let him loose on the buffet. But if you really want to do the guy a favor, run a hooker in there about 20 minutes before you kill him. At least that way he won't vomit four bacon cheeseburgers, a meat lover’s pizza, a pint of ice cream, two root beers, and a pound of barbeque ribs on the floor when you fry him.

Things that Go Bump in the Night...

I have a raccoon in my attic. And it’s making. Me. Crazy.

According to the good people at 911Wildlife I have a raccoon who, based on dropping-age-analysis, appears to have chased off a previously residing possum who may have eaten or chased off previously residing rats. I have a veritable food chain of attic dwelling pests running around just above my head. At night. While I’m sleeping. Er, trying to sleep.

And so last Friday I officially launched Plan Ringtail to rid my home of this pesky invader. The plan works like this: get the critter out via a one-way door, if it has a litter of babies up there it will find another way back in, if it doesn’t then it’s gone for good. Then cover up the entry holes with dirt and sod. A brief view into my mind at this point: a raccoon tearing the siding off the house in the middle of the night to save its babies; waking from a troubled sleep believing that the lump of covers at the foot of the bed is a raccoon; opening the attic door to find a mother raccoon with a switchblade waiting to kill me. Tip of the iceberg my friends, tip of the iceberg.

Four and a half days in to Plan Ringtail and the evidence is maddeningly inconclusive. Maybe the raccoon left and dug its way back in the first night. So I covered up that hole. Nothing has happened since. Every little noise made anywhere within a 10 mile radius could be the raccoon in the attic. Was that the TV or the raccoon? Mute. Silence. Un-mute. Repeat. The good people at 911Wildlife are now sending me a video with audio of what baby raccoons sound like so that if I hear that sound, I’ll know they’re still up there.

As good as Plan Ringtail may be it is a flawed. And that flaw is based entirely on my cowardice. See, I want nothing at all, whatsoever, at any point in my life or afterlife to come face to face with any of the aforementioned attic dwelling pests. Dead or alive. And so Plan Ringtail is based on the logic of raccoon behavior. Now listen, if raccoon behavior was that damn logical do you really think they’d be living in attics and digging through trash cans for food? No! They’d be chasing my chicken-ass out of the house and working their way through the refrigerator. They’ve got switchblades for crying out loud! What we need here are facts. Cold, hard, observable facts.

Let me introduce you to the Planetcam Internet Motion-activated System. A live, secure window into my home from anywhere. We’re talking about a wireless PC transceiver, control center software, an Eagle Eye motion sensor, USB video capture cable (high res of course), a small video receiver (no audio), and an instant-on camera. $129.99. Hundreds of uses, tiny and discrete, easy to setup, and weather resistant.

I like the idea of ‘control center software’. Like I’m NASA or something keeping an eye on the Mars Rover. I am so close to hitting the “click to add to shopping cart” button that my hands are shaking. My wife would kill me.

But let’s get real. Imagine I do this and actually have the guts to go up in the attic and install this thing. Can you imagine the anxiety? Increasing exponentially with every minute that I’m up there? With every drip of sweat off my brow and slip of the screw driver? With every tree limb brushing against the roof? It would be such a complete study of a person going insane that it’s a pity the camera won’t be hooked up to capture it.

You know how this will turn out right? You’ve seen the video of the Loch Ness Monster? And Bigfoot? And the ensuing lifetime obsessions? That’s the road we’re headed down. Out damn raccoon! Out I say!

Unschooling? What the what?!?

I read an article yesterday about Unschooling. Rather than following a set curriculum, the Unschooling child is in control of his learning and is free to decide what he wants to study and when he wants to study it. And of course this produces fabulous results. One child became a successful entrepreneur, one became a mathematician. I’m sure one will become Albert Einstein. Apparently the Lord of the Flies had it all wrong.

I’m a skeptic, of course, and view this as another rationalization by parents who don’t want to do any of the hard work of parenting. Or it’s a rationalization by the Tea Party to eliminate funding for education. Either way, I had the opportunity to study and learn what I wanted when I was a child too. It was called a hobby. Not school. I learned a lot about Star Wars and electric football. It was awesome, but neither included reading, writing, or ‘rithmetic.

Regardless, I owe it to you to do some objective analysis on this educational approach. But there are precious few examples of Unschooling children in the world. Our data set is far too small for meaningful analysis. Lucky for me, there are tens of millions of people to observe who study whatever they want whenever they want. We call them adults.

So using adults as a proxy for children – not as big a stretch as you might think when you consider we use mice as a proxy for children all the time – I did a little observing to see what these adults were learning. I was able to draw a few conclusions about what the hot subjects might be if there were an Unschooling course catalog… which there never would be…

1. Internet pornography
2. Call of Duty
3. The Kardashians (and several geographic varieties of housewives)
4. Fantasy Football
5. iPads

I hear that there is a Kardashian-mother-Bruce-Jenner sex tape out there. I’m sure a lot of Unschoolers will want to learn about that.

There were a few interesting observations as well. A lot of us enjoy learning about what to do if we’re stranded on a tropical island with a bunch of strangers and have to vote one of them off that island every week. Many of us, particularly men, like learning about numbers. A touchdown is 6. Ted Williams batted .406 in 1941. A Porsche 911 can go 0 to 60 in 4.7 seconds. Numbers, not math. And almost everyone, especially famous Unschoolers, likes learning about writing, but only 140 characters at a time and not with a pencil.

And despite repeated opportunities, no one seems to want to learn about how credit cards really work, the relationship between fat foods and fat bodies, functional governments, exit strategies, or how to behave like a decent human being while driving a car.

So until I see some 8 year old Unschooler reading about Alternate Minimum Taxes I’m not convinced.

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful...

Friends it seems that my voice is finally starting to echo around the hallowed halls of the New York Times. That’s right. Check out yesterday’s Op-Ed piece by Friedman (that’s Thomas, not Milton.) He’s finally saying what I’ve been saying all along: it’s up to you, my friends, to make the world a better place. His column should be far out-drawing the talking heads on either extreme that we seem to love so much.

So with Thomas holding up my end of the deal, I can end my political discourse for today and move on to a more seasonal topic: Christmas shopping.

The wife and I headed out for a little shopping on Saturday afternoon and to some degree beat the Thanksgiving-Christmas-Shopping crowd. We browsed along and said things like “that’s kind of nice” when what we meant was “honey, just buy me that while I run over to Starbuck’s.” And we came home with a few bags of presents for the nieces and nephews in our life as well. So a good day altogether.

Many years ago, while Christmas shopping as a child I purchased the “TV duck” for my dad’s present. It was a bean bag duck with a flap. It was designed to sit on the arm rest of the sofa and hold the TV remote control. What could be better? I didn’t realize at the time that it was a novelty gift. As I strolled through Macy’s this past weekend it warmed my heart to see that the tradition of Christmas novelty gifts is as strong as ever.

A couple that I noticed in particular:

• Dallas Cowboy Jenga. That will be going in the stocking of my Pittsburgh based brother-in-law. I expect he’ll use the game pieces as kindling, but it will be fun to imagine his friends thinking him a closet Cowboys fan.
• Dallas Cowboy Yahtzee. Specifically, Travel Yahtzee. It’s just 5 blue dice with silver dots. No score pads (because it’s “travel”.) I suppose it could double as Dallas Cowboy Travel Craps. Mom, check your stocking for blue and silver dice.
• Travel Coffee Cup. Not just any travel coffee cup. It has a temperature gauge on the side and an on/off switch so you can have precisely the right temperature coffee on the way to work. So tell me, at what temperature, exactly, do you like your coffee? Give me a number.
• The Chair Massager. The best thing about these potential gifts is that you can sit down for a quick massage while you’re looking over some ridiculously themed Jenga set.
• Electric football. Remember the old vibrating metal football field and the little plastic men running all over the place? It’s back. Greatest. Christmas. Present. Ever. I’m going to run over to Starbuck’s for a minute…
  

So here’s my philosophy on Christmas shopping: do it all online in August. Then, go to the mall at Christmas time and enjoy it. Do a little ice skating, get yourself a nice holiday latte, and enjoy it while there’s no pressure. You want a real treat? Valet park the car at the mall – you can afford it since you won’t be spending anything on novelty gifts. Then take a look at all those suckers in the inexplicably huge line at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and enjoy being smart enough to read my blog and heed my advice.

Merry Christmas. Wait, Happy Thanksgiving, sorry.

Ricky Bobby? Anyone?

Last Spring I found myself in the all too familiar position of defending NASCAR to my elitist East Coast friends. Why would anyone sit all afternoon to watch cars go around in a circle, they asked. Finally after much to’ing and fro’ing we settled on them admitting there was some skill involved and me admitting that the races should be shorter. Well my friends, I spent this past weekend in the grandstands of the Talladega Superspeedway watching 250 miles of truck racing and 500 miles of big league, left-turn-only, stock car racing.

And it was awesome. It was loud and fast. You feel the rumble in your chest when the pack passes by and hear the whirr of the air guns when they change tires. It is a full-on assault on all five senses and it is awesome. TV doesn’t do it justice. I’m thinking of getting tickets for the race in Texas this weekend…

There were a couple of funny moments, as you can imagine. Paul Menard crashed after only 5 miles of racing bringing out the first caution flag of the day. Several cars entered the pits and changed tires. A man behind me turned to his racing buddy and said derisively “we have cars that can go a thousand miles on a set of tires and these guys are changing them after 2 laps.” Seriously? Yes. And his buddy nodded in agreement. [Note: if you don’t understand why this is absurd, tickets are on sale for next year’s race. You’ll fit right in.]

The crowd was huge. 143,000 chain smokers all in one place. It was like the Marlboro Man had died - well, died again - and gone to heaven. And nobody seems to give a shit that they’re flicking ashes all over the other 142,999 people’s jackets.

There was this little guy in front of me, Jesse, who was jawing back and forth with his buddy all day about who’s driver was better, Denny Hamlin or Kyle Busch. Hamlin blew an engine on lap 137 and you’d have thought Jesse’s dog died. I mean these folks take their racing seriously. Too seriously. I doubt Denny Hamlin was as broken up about it as Jesse. I don't know how Jesse found the will to live.

Regardless, the racing is awesome and I had a fantastic weekend which I wouldn’t trade for much.

I admit that the fans drive me freakin’ crazy, though. Maybe you've heard this from me before, but it’s not just racing fans that do that. I have come to realize that every time I go someplace there’s someone or something in the crowd that really pisses me off. I’m convinced – as I straighten my newly acquired reading glasses – that this may be the truest sign that I’m getting older.

So I say all that to say this: the next time you’re in a crowd, and think you’re not being a horse’s ass, take a look around because you’re probably pissing somebody off.

I just can't help myself...

That’s it. I’ve had it with all these bleepin’-bleepin’ snakes on this bleepin’-bleepin’ plane! The conservative media in this country has officially jumped the shark. They’ve been declining for a while but finally a leather-jacket-wearing-water-skiing Rush Limbaugh has jumped over a big, nasty shark called the NFL.

According to Rush, “This is not about the NFL, it’s not about the St.
Louis Rams, it’s not about me, this is about the ongoing effort by the left in
this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or
wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative. Therefore, this is about the future of the
United States of America and what kind of country we’re going to have.”

This is about the future of America? Really? It’s not about you Rush? Really? Why don’t you take some responsibility for your negative remarks about the NFL (Donovan McNabb, anyone) and accept that it IS about you. Get it through your ego that maybe you are not everything to everyone. Maybe it is not a vast left wing conspiracy to keep you down – do you really believe you’ve been kept down? Maybe, just maybe the NFL doesn’t want you because of you and not because some cadre of trench-coat-wearing leftists has infiltrated the richest good old boy network in the country.

Rush recently described Obama as a “disaster” and Jimmy Carter as an “utter disgrace” but George W. Bush is “the most decent, down to earth, real man you could ever hope to meet”. Rush is so predictable and so one sided that he has lost 100% of his credibility. Sort of like reality TV.

Pick an issue and I am sure that Rush can concoct a conspiracy story. Chicago didn’t get the Olympics – payback because the world hates Obama who hails from Chicago. Drug wars in Mexico – what did you expect? The Left won’t let them sell drugs in a free market so they kill innocent conservatives in the streets and you’re next. Tsunamis in the Pacific? Obviously the Left is allowing these things to happen so they can swoop in with a big taxpayer funded relief bureaucracy. Can't buy an NFL team? It's the Left, of course.

And Rush is not alone. Mark Levin, another conservative commentator has lost all of his credibility too. He’s a smart guy. He makes some good points. But his criticisms of the Left boil down to calling them Nazis and insulting their physical appearance. It’s like debating with a 4 year old, or a table as Barney Frank might say. He is so predictable and one sided that he too has lost all credibility.

These are serious times and we need serious people. There is a worthy debate to be had around caring for our sick, employing our work force, and sustaining a viable financial system. And there are reasonable solutions – look at the rest of the world, these problems are being solved by smart people everywhere. Is it the best you can do to call people names? Is that all you bring to the table?

Rush and his ilk are simply entertainers now. So before you tell me that Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin have no business in politics recognize that the leader of the Republican party is one of them. People always fault the “liberal media” but the truth is that the conservative media in this country has devolved from journalism to entertainment. And that’s a shame because there are some smart guys out there who would rather make ratings better than make America better. Idiots.