Month: February 2008 (Page 1 of 2)

Not really. Not fifteen. Just the only key to my car, house, Megan’s car and my office. Oh, and the remote to my garage. What’s that? Five? The distress of losing keys is acute. I guess a lost wallet is worse with credit, debit, health and ID cards…

I spent yesterday miserable and miserable to be around. Some people I used to work with called it “the monster.” Well, he was back, sulking around the house inside and out, in a joyless search for shards of carved metal. What about that spare to the Volvo? I know I had one of those. Yeah, Megan used it once to um, borrow my car. Once I got it back, I hid it… Uhhhh…. That’s where the early-onset Alzheimer’s kicks in…

This morning I tore the house apart. Post-Megan joyride, I had hidden the key under my luggage in a cubbyhole in my room. As I frisked every pocket in 3 black roller bags, I was teased by two of them with what turned out to be the cheesy combination bag lock. I moved to old pants pockets, old shoes, my Volvo file and in a variety of “junk drawers.” I crawled under beds (note to self: discuss contents with Kyle) and through the car itself… Nothing. I dug through the antique dresser in Kyle’s room through the Harry Potter stuff, old racquetball racquets, and my plaque of the 1978 Intercity League Champs, the Wakefield Merchants. Hey kid, nice ‘fro. Zip… Then a hopeful sense washed over me and I opened Kyle’s closet. Most of it is now filled with the bright colors of baby girl clothes yet to be modeled by Miss Madison, but in the back were my coats… Immediately I knew which one and pulled the “Valet” key from the pocket of an old “LL Bean” type canvas windbreaker Dad had given me. I stuffed the monster into the closet and walked into Megan’s room silently hold the key aloft like I had won “the Ring” after a dirty, medieval death match with Gollum.

So I’m off to get a couple copies of my house key made and I’ll order a new primary key from Volvo. As for my office key, I’m sure there are spares and I gained some new perspective from my daughter about it. “You should be happy you have an office key. Most people have cubes.”

It’s that “glass half full” perspective that’s um… a key to happiness.

Maybe it’s the endorphins, but at the 3:25 mark of this song by the amazing Antony and the Johnsons, I was dancing in my kitchen and Kyle was looking at me with a facial expression somewhere between complete hilarity and the haunting notion that I may be having an epileptic seizure. I turned off my iPod and asked, “hey kid, can you dance?” “No! And I don’t want to like that!”

No, really. I’m quite good and employed several Motown techniques in this afternoon’s performance. I have serious soul for a white guy. Seriously. I’ll just have to videotape myself and post it to youtube. Yeah, that’s just what I’ll do.

Senator Obama caught some flack recently for um, “evoking” some words used previously by Deval Patrick in a speech while successfully running for Governor of Massachusetts. In writing, that would be called “plagiarism,” but my candidate keeps working on his tan while most of the media spray him with Teflon sunblock. Mrs. Obama also had a few things to say this week and they were not well received.

Senator Clinton’s new campaign theme is that the difference between Barack Obama and her is “a choice between speeches and solutions.” I see. Anyway, wanting to learn more about my candidate, I’ve begun to read about him while on my stairway to the stars. I just finished reading a 2006 speech on the relevance of faith in our country. I urge you to read it. Here’s a highlight:

“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible.”

I’ll be printing and reading more speeches and position papers in the days and weeks ahead. I don’t want to become a viral video the next time I’m interviewed by a big boy on TV:

What does it say about me that my television viewing is limited to MSNBC, CNN, FauxNews and Family Guy? That’s it. Did you know you can program a Comcast remote to cycle between 2 or more channels with the “Fav” button? Oh yeah… On primary nights my ADD goes off the Ritalin and on the crack pipe as I lay mesmerized by the “objective” reporting of Keith Olberman, Bill-O, Pat Buchanan, Chris Matthews, Wolf, and representing the Nazi’s, Sean Hannity . And I don’t know who I find more compelling, Olberman ranting a “Special Comment” or Stewie Griffin inquiring about Brian’s book. You tell me.

CNNMoney.com reports the average obligated consumer will spend nearly $123 on today’s festivities, and when all the chocolates, flowers and pork rinds are counted, Americans will have contributed $17B towards averting a recession. That is marketing.

“Golf is a game you can’t win” said Larry plainly. Larry’s 73, and while I’ll likely never see the man again, it was a fun three hours of golf with him, his son Mike, and my dad. Before the round, Dad asked if I wanted to hit some balls over at the practice tee… “Nah, I’ll be fine,” I said with a smile, even though it had been over a year since I’d touched a club. The curious thing was Dad’s sincerity. That was contrast to the last time we played the Baseline Golf Course when my desire to hit a few warm-up balls was met with angry objection. Dad’s neighbor, Dickie Greene was “up Maine” visiting family and brought his clubs over to Dad’s before he left in case we decided to play. Dick’s a great guy and I’m glad Dad has him as a friend.

On to the first tee… Dad’s always been competitive on the links, and we’ve had fun over the years trying to psych each other out. On occasion, the trash talk had resulted in some bruised egos, so I had no intention of kicking things off by reminding Dad of the left side body of water… After about 4 holes I was up 3 when Dad banged one on the green from about 160 yards and said, “Don’t let that put any pressure on you.” I wasn’t biting, but my shot fell short about 20 yards right. I chipped on and then watched a 12 footer lip out. I tapped in for a 4 and then watched the old man drain a 10 footer for par. Ouch.

The next hole was a short par 3, playing about 120 yards. Dad popped one up that landed about 20 yards from the green. I pushed my shot and it lofted to a grassy spot 30 yards to the right of the green. I chipped on and then turned to watch Dad top his ball and roll it into a sand trap. He has to get over a pretty steep lip of the trap so he took a healthy swing. When the sandstorm subsided, the Titleist was wedged right up in the top of the lip… Rut-Roh. I could sense Dad’s blood pressure medication was really going to earn it’s co-pay now. He stepped forward in the sand and took a half swing to pop the ball onto “the dancefloor.” Cool. I turned back at the sound of a thud and saw Dad face down, half in and half out of the trap. I think he was a little embarrassed and hastened his way onto his feet. I made sure he was OK and with no sarcasm said, “forget about it and focus on the putt.” He did and never let it get to him. We didn’t speak about the little mishap for a couple holes, but it lingered. Finally I couldn’t resist: “It looked like you got the first down.” Dad laughed. And smiled. It took him nearly all of his 74 years to mellow out, but he really has.

Larry is right. Golf is a game you can’t win, but when you’re out on a 74 degree day with your dad who matched the warmth in years, winning’s not the point.

With a post title stolen from Mick and Keith, I bring you lies. On Wednesday, I opened an email titled, “Military Deaths.” My friend’s comment was “Interesting!!!,” followed by a forwarded email introduced by slamming “The Jim Lehrer News Hour” as “Just one example of today’s biased press,” and noting the show is “partly funded by all of us who pay taxes.” Are you with me so far?

The introduction goes on to criticize Mr. Lehrer for doing “moments of silence” to honor American soldiers killed in Iraq because he never did so during “Clinton’s military operations.” In a second forwarded email came the “proof” titled “MILITARY DEATHS FOR TWENTY YEARS” that included “military fatalities” from 1980 to 2006. Yeah, it’s actually a 27 year span, but that’s not the lie, that’s just stupidity. The numbers suggested more American soldiers died under Clinton than Bush, by 13,417 to 9,016. Toward the end of the email, there was an invitation to confirm the statistics via a linked report. I accepted the invitation, read the report and discovered the numbers as reported are highly distorted. They contain “total fatalities” by any means… illness, accident, etc. “Hostile action” deaths during the Clinton years were actually 148, not the 13,417 bullshit slant put forth by the author. I think we’ve lost a few more than 148 under Dubya and Dick…

Finally, the piece of fiction; undoubtedly read and believed as fact by many red-state drones asked a couple questions that I’ll answer:

1. “Why does the mainstream Print and TV Media never provide statistics like these?” Well, because they’re lies intended to lessen the horror over American Military deaths perpetuated by the Bush Administration, but you can probably find them on FauxNews.
2. “Why do the mainstream media hate the war as much as they do?” Maybe because the war was unjustified, has turned much of the world against us, and was sold to the American public with lies just like yours.

We can expect much more of this creative writing coming out of undisclosed right wing locations over the coming months. The smear campaign they’ll wage against either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama will be furious. Oh, and there’s dirt under Senator McCain’s fingernails as well. I do have some hope that the Democats will rise above it, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Speaking of lies, have you ever wondered how historical events would have been reported by Fox?

Congratulations to the World Champion New York Giants. They kicked the Patriots ass.

In other news, Bill Belichick should be fired for his latest classless display of poor sportsmanship. He left his team on the field to lose while he ran off like a petulant Pee Wee. Disgraceful.

Later today there’s a football game of no real consequence. Sure, I’ll watch and root for the Patriots to make history, but the outcome will have little impact on the infant I hold watching all the highly-defined, fast moving colors. The contests on Tuesday will move our nation closer to November 4th when we’ll all decide whether we all wish to remain the crash test dummies of destructive Republican policy, or exit the highway to hell and reverse direction. The most important thing about Tuesday is that Democratic primary voters get it right and cast the affirmative for a candidate who can win in November and then bring people together to clean up the toxic and smoldering mess left us by the Bush Administration. Yeah, it’s a big one…

While oil prices have squeezed the American family by adding cost to nearly everything, our benefactors at Exxon-Mobil announced an all-time annual profit record of $40.61 billion. Yeah… $40,610,000,000.00

Moving on to war profiteering, Raytheon’s 4th-quarter profits shot up like a Patriot missile 63%. Isn’t it heartwarming that while poor American teenagers and Iraqi civilians are dying in Iraq, Raytheon is profiting.

Speaking of the “military-industrial complex,” the Republican grand-daughter of the Republican President who cautioned us about it, has endorsed Barack Obama. Quoting her Grandfather, she wrote: “As we peer into society’s future,” he said, we “must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”

Finally, there’s an effort by the Administration to provide criminal immunity to our large, corporate telecommunication corporations (Verizon, AT&T;, Comcact, et al) against any charges related to their helping George and Dick spy on you and me. In a “Special Comment” segment broadcast January 31st, Keith Olbermann rants on the issue and describes the actions of an AT&T; whistleblower:

Mark Klein is the AT&T; whistleblower who appeared on this newscast last November, who explained, in the placid, dull terms of your local neighborhood I-T desk, how he personally attached all of AT&T;’s circuits — everything carrying every phone call, every e-mail, every bit of web browsing — into a secure room…

…Room Number 641-A, at the Folsom Street facility in San Francisco — where it was all copied so the government could look at it.

Not some of it; not just the international part of it; certainly not just the stuff some truly patriotic and telepathic spy might be able to divine had been sent or spoken by or to a terrorist.

Everything.

Every time you looked at a naked picture, every time you bid on eBay, every time you phoned-in a donation to a Democrat.

“My thought was ‘George Orwell’s 1984,’” Mr. Klein told me, reflecting back, “and here I am, being forced to… connect the Big Brother machine.”

Here’s all of it:

They spy on you and me, then call us un-Patriotic when we challenge them. That is part of the “change” you’re hearing about and the next opportunity to support it is Tuesday. Go vote.

Oh… Pats 45-10.