How's Everything Tasting?

Every morning, I stop off on my way into work at the little drug store just inside the building to buy breakfast.  I buy a $.59 shrimp flavored Cup – O – Noodle.  I know, that’s degusting you say.  Maybe that’s true, but it’s not any worse than what most of the rest of you are going to eat, so I don’t want to hear about it.  Anyway, at the check-out counter, there is actually a tip jar.  This begs me to ask the following question:  Why in the name of sweet Mary Poppins’ trouser snake is there a tip jar for the lady running the register?  She’s sitting on a stool, taking money, and handing back change.  The store pays you what they figure that’s worth.  I had to go find the noodles myself.  Then I had to walk alllll the way up to the register and stand there until you snorted, “Next!”.  I’m not going to pay more than the product price just because you stuck a tip jar out there.  Why am I being expected to subsidize the wages of practically every employee I come into contact with?  And why do I have to tip so much now?

Tip jars are basically everywhere.  I get tipping a waiter or waitress (Or server, or whatever else they are called now).  From the dawn of food time everyone knows that you are paying the restaurant for the food and the waitress to bring it to you.  They only really get paid enough to take care of their tax withholdings…whatever.  But if I go into a donut shop, place my order at the counter for coffee and a donut, fix up my own coffee (which sometimes means I even pour it myself), pay you and leave…why would I give you a tip?  I’ve already paid like $4 for a cup of coffee (which kind of makes me an idiot in the first place, but that’s another discussion).  They have tip jars at the parking garage.  I press a button (which probably gave me finger AIDS), park my car; and when I leave I hand you exact change so you can press a button to release my car from the clutches of the uppy-downy bar.  I’m not giving you a gratuity for that.  I'm not really that grateful.  The garage at the airport has machine to take my money.  I expect to be let out.  If they aren’t paying you enough to push that swine flu encrusted button, ask for a raise.  I’ve already paid way more than I should have in order  park my car for an hour so I could over-tip the guy at the take-out counter of a Chili’s ®.

Coffee shops, Delis, Chinese Take-out, the UPS store, electronics stores…the list is nearly endless.  I’ve even seen a tip jar at a Walmart cash register for the love of Jenna Jameson.  Sometimes the jar will have some little explanatory note taped to it, like, “For my kid’s college”, or “My dog needs a hip replaced, “So we can bury grandma”.  Now you’re just begging for money.  I love these ones:  When the owner of the store is the one with the tip jar.  Now you’re just blowing sand up my skirt.  It’s your business! You set the prices and just because you’re too cheap to hire some help you’re also at the register.  Here’s the tip you need: If you’re too much of an inept business owner to set prices that will cover your costs than don’t be in business!

“Good sir, how much would you charge me to buy that 10lb bag of women’s underpants?”
“I will sell that to you for $15.00.”
“Deal.”
“Excellent, now can I have a little more?”

It’s like bartering in reverse…and it’s moronic from a consumer standpoint.  And even if it’s not your business, I’m not tipping you for doing the job you agreed to do for the wages you agreed to be paid.  You serve coffee for minimum wage.  You call it being a ‘barista’.  It’s just a fancy word for “I pour coffee much the same way you would at home except into a paper cup with an Italian name.”  Here’s YOUR tip:  Minimum wage is probably more than that job is worth.  I’m not giving you more money.

The grocery store where we shop has baggers that work for tips.  After they put stuff your now broken eggs in your bags, they want to follow you out to your car, pushing the cart full of the same groceries you’ve been pushing around the store for 30 minutes, and then expect you to tip them like 10% of your purchase.  They get nasty when I tell the cashier that I’ll be taking my groceries out.  You know what: Go stab a fat orphan!  I’m not paying someone to do a job I don’t need done!  Every other grocery store just lets you take your own crap out to your mommy missle.  Why should this store be different just so I can pay someone to do something NOBODY NEEDS! Do you know how stupid you feel, as a 39 year old man, walking out to your car being followed by a 70 year old retiree pushing your cart?  I mean I’m lazy, but I’m not that lazy.  You’re just paying the guy to torture himself at that point.  So it’s really not that much different than paying homeless people to let you hunt them with paint balls.  But I digress.

Not only are we now expected to hand out extra cash for everything from package delivery to traffic stops, tips for waitresses are magically going up too.  It used to be that a tip for good service at a restaurant was 10-15%.  Now we’re expected to tip 15-20%.  In a recent discussion, one of my friends informed me that’s due to inflation.  Let me divide by zero here:  You’re paying a percentage.  That means as things cost more, the tips go up at the same rate.   If I paid you $7.00 for a meal that cost $50.00 ten years ago, I shouldn’t be tipping you $10 for it now.  The difference lies in the that a meal that cost $50 ten years ago now costs $80, so you’re getting $12 at 15% anyway…so quit crying!

Maybe I should just join the parade and put a tip jar on my desk.  I suppose, if we all did it, and we all tipped each other, it would turn the whole gratuity system into a nil-sum gain.  We’ll all just be trading tips.  I’ll be the only one making money though, because I’ll flood the internet with articles and blogs like this one to persistently establish the standard customary tip for ‘guy who sits a desk and answers emails’ at 25%.  Plus, I'd have a note that reads: Just need money for strippers.  Because that my friends is worth tipping.

That’ll be $5.  Enjoy the rest of your day.

© 2011--Raymond Smith

I Want My Two Dollars!

I'm watching all these protesters 'occupying' Wall Street. They're angry. They've had enough of watching our country morph into this situation where the top 1% of the population control the bulk of the wealth. And I get it, they've played by the rules, they've worked hard. Many have gone to college and have student loans for bachelor's degrees that don't pay off in terms of the jobs they expected. Meanwhile, they see those of fortunate circumstances, be that family money, or just plain luck enjoying all the good times. Tea Party and far right conservatives' claims that the very wealthy use that money to create jobs seems to be class A hokum considering they retain and play with the bulk of their money. So how did our country get to this point?

Actually, that's a dumb question for me to ask. The better question is: When wasn't our country, or any other this way?

Dear Wall Street occupying, disenfranchised hipsters,

Put down your PBR and medical THC for a minute and pay attention. This is not new! The very tippy top minority holding the lion's share of the money and power has been the case in pretty much every society for thousands of years! It's not a Capitalist thing. It's not a Socialist things. It just...is.

It started when one big strong caveman wielded physical and sexual power over his fellow cave dwellers. He commanded the best food, flattest rock to sleep on, most pimp-ass saber toothed tiger fur, and had his command over the hottest (though hairy) cave chicks. The Pyramids of Egypt were built by hundreds of thousands of slaves to satisfy the opulent post-mortem obsessions of like 20 people. The Senators and Emperors of Rome had enough scratch to spend building giant stone houses off the backs of the proletariat. The Kings and wealthy land owners of Europe bathed in hot and cold running fat cash while basically everyone else squirmed around in their own filth.

But what about the noble and enlightened? The Chinese? Yeah, same story but with fireworks. The American Indians...yup. Powhatan's people knew full well who their daddy was. Marxists? Sure, they rage against the machine until they are the machine. Life was good in the USSR if you were a member of the Politburo...not so much if you were a farm-hand in Azerbaijan. How about the Inca, the Maya, or the renowned street gangs of L.A.? Uhh...yeah, same thing.

About the only society where this wasn't the case would have been the early post-colonial United States; the land of opportunity where everyone could succeed and attain the American Dream. After we kicked King George in the ding ding and founded the greatest nation ever to exist, every man, woman and child in the country made it big. Yeah right. One word: Plantation!

Our country didn't just get this way. It started this way. George Washington's humble little mansion on a hill overlooked a spread of around 5,000 acres and was operated ENTIRELY by slaves. Talk about disenfranchised. The founding fathers of this country were the top 1%. Everyone else would spend their entire lives sucking hind tit. But that's okay, right, surely the likes of George, Thomas, Ben, and the boys started out from humble beginnings and worked their way through college to get where they were. Heck, anyone in America could have had what they did at that time. Some did, but most didn't. The larger part of the signers of the constitution were privileged. Washington and Jefferson were rich from the get go...born to a couple of the most prominent families of Virginia at the time. Carnegie, Getty, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Ford, and Mr. Gates. Whether from privileged beginnings, or superior endeavors, these people became very very very rich while most of the rest of America goofed around in the middle class or lower.

Is it wrong? Well, that depends on how you look at it. In once sense, sure, they should share...I guess. Should they put more of their personal money back into the businesses they build and create more jobs? Should the government take it away from them through taxes and give it to everybody else? It doesn’t' really matter. Because, and here's the secret so really pay attention, you can start chanting again in a minute: Wealth redistribution will be the same whether you tax them more or not! Not better, not worse...the same.

Here's how: All the re-distributors are getting their knickers in a twist over the fact that, contrary to Tea -Bagger claims, those top earners and executives squander their wealth instead of using it to create jobs. That is a myopic view of job creation. Just because they don't re-invest every penny in theirs and other companies for growth (and therefor job creation) doesn't mean they're not creating jobs. What do you think the 2^nd and 3^rd order effects are when one of these grotesquely rich dudes has a custom 10,000 sq/ft house built? SOMEONE HAS TO BUILD IT. The same goes for yachts, summer homes, restaurants that make you taste the wine before they poor you a glass, private airplanes, expensive cars, cosmetic surgeons, strippers, escorts, entourages, and discrete 'pharmaceutical' suppliers.

Those who have money spend money. Most of them have money because for the most part they are smart with their money and save first and spend the residual. If you tax them more, you're just cutting into the money they spend. So, the only difference between redistribution by tax, and redistribution by squandering, is that at least with the later you have have a chance to get in front of the spend train and make a little for yourself. Or, you could let the government take it and waste it on pork-barrel spending that won't help anything, anywhere, ever.

Right, wrong, or indifferent...this situation has been an economic constant for as long as their have been people. It exists because it has to. Every model of society that has ever endeavored to be different ends up in this state very quickly because it has no choice. Someone has to mop floors, and someone else has to be at the top. But that doesn't mean that you can't start off with a mop in your hand, and end up with the keys to the executive washroom. It also doesn't mean you will. You make choices, you try and fail and try again, and if you're lucky, something you try will coincide with an opportunity and you'll be up, out and on top..and don't forget about the luck.

Bill Gates is a brilliant innovator. But that's not why he is where he is. He has all that he does because of pure, dumb luck. Check this out: Gates just happened to be fortunate enough to attend a very exclusive private school in the 8^th grade. This school happened to have a computer AND access to a block of time at a better computer over at General Electric. This was 1968 folks. Bill gates, a driven and tech-savvy braniac just happened to fall ass-backwards into a situation where he could learn to program computers at a time when really no one else in the country could do the same. Talk about a head start! Sure, he made a lot of good decisions that made him wealthy, but none of that would have put him where he is without the one in ten million chance he started out with.

So, quit whining. You're not going to change this economic constant. Go back to whatever you do for a living, or figure out what that's going to be. Do your best, hope for some good luck, and remember...as Denis Leary said, “Life sucks, wear a helmet.”


© 2011 Raymond Smith

To Fist a Mockingbird

The United States and its allies have had increasing levels of success over the years with the tracking down and killing of ‘big fish’ terrorists.  In 2006, an Air Strike clinched the U.S. leveling up victory against a boss as Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was bombified.  In 2011, the bulk of the western world nearly had an orgasm when a SEAL team  was sent to where Usama’s Bin Hiding.   With terrorists getting pwned like little newbs front left and center, the ‘gotcha bitch’ de résistance was the whacking of Anwar  Al Awlaki who was pimp slapped by a Hellfire missile after eating breakfast and going for a drive.   As Americans we absolutely love this.  It’s that image of the eagle sharpening its talons and half a bazillion albums worth of Toby Keith songs finally getting their due.  But, no matter how big a collective erection we get over these hard fought victories over the dark lords, there is something just a little bit itchy underneath this Stars and Stripes codpiece.   It’s probably not legal.  Not only is it not legal, if it weren’t for it being wrapped in the bacon of “War on Terror”, there is no way in hell Americans, or anyone else eat this filet mignon.

It’s easy for us to accept it though.  We killed Usama Bin Laden.  And we did in a bad-ass Hollywood fashion.  He was known beyond a shadow of a doubt as the leader of the world’s most feared terrorist organization. Youtube has been awash for years in Awlaki made recruiting videos.  He’s known to have incited terrorism all over the world including the Fort Hood shootings.  Zarqawi led the insurgency in Iraq, responsible for countless car bombings, suicide attacks, and shoe throwings.   These guys were undisputed heavyweight bad guys.  And as long as you look at it that way, you’ll never get passed the GWOT film over your eyes.  So let’s look at it another way…change of venue.

Hokay..so…a Taiwanese drug lord, responsible for hundreds of murders in mainland China had immigrated to the United States on a visa.  He’s not really on our radar for any real reason so who cares.  He’s not our problem.  The Chinese government wants this guy something fierce and diplomatic efforts through the State Department to have the FBI go look for him haven’t really gotten anywhere because we’re just too busy.  “Yes, yes, China we know. He’s here somewhere and you really don’t like him but we’ve got other stuff to do.”  So the Chinese manage to find a doctor who has financial problems and happens to live where they suspect this guy is.  They pay him to start a ‘free’ clinic to give flu shots.  Meanwhile, the good doctor is sending back DNA samples to the Chinese to confirm this dude’s presence.  Then, one night, when it’s dark and quiet, a Chinese helicopter enters the United States under radar from Mexico, unloads a bunch of Chinese special forces (Ninjas maybe) who engage in a gun battle inside an American neighborhood, kill the guy and exfil with the body.

If this happened, you…would…lose…your…mind.  And we would very likely end up at war with China.  But this is pretty much exactly the scenario surrounding the take-down of UBL.  Why don’t we have a problem with it? We don’t because we just really really really wanted him.  And so that makes it okay.  But it doesn’t.

At the end of WWII, and after the fall of the German Reich, the manhunt was on for anyone who’d been a Nazi.  During the occupation of Germany, there were several splinter groups still burning the candle for Adolf andcommitting acts of violence.  None of these people fell victim to military air strikes.  Nor were they summarily executed in their homes.  They were arrested.  In 2003, the U.S and some BFF’s declared war on Iraq.  That is, they declared war on the government of Iraq.  After the cessation of hostilities between sovereign powers came to an end, the war (like WWII), was over.  The Iraqi people began fashioning a new government, and during that process there popped up a lot really nasty insurgents.  These insurgents had a habit of murdering other Iraqi citizens and coalition military as well.  There’s another word for these guys: “Criminals”.   Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was at home with his family when an airplane dropped a bomb on his house, killing him, along with his wives and their child.  Why didn't someone just arrest him?  Timothy McVeigh was an insurgent within a sovereign nation who had killed a lot of people by bombing and would likely have continued to do so.  The U.S.  didn’t ask Canada to drop a bomb on his house.  The U.S. arrested him.  What about the Unabomber?  I don’t remember any JDAMS being used on him either.

Awlaki was an American citizen who was suspected of inciting other people to commit crimes.  He was never indicted by a grand jury, or charged with a crime.  As an American citizen, like the rest of us, he is protected by the 5^th amendment for due process.  He as the right to face his accuser in a court of law and be tried by a jury of his peers.  He was nowhere near any battle field.  Just because the President ordered it, and congressional oversight approved it, doesn’t mean it was legal.  If this was legal, it would be no different if we’d carried out an airstrike on Roman Polanski who was living in France.  At least Roman had been convicted of something.  If Awlaki was not connected to terrorism, which seems to be a green light word for ‘do whatever the hell you want’, I would guess the American people would have a out and out collective shit-fit.  If he’d been an L.A. based drug lord, directly responsible for numerous murders, and had fled abroad, you would not likely cheer as loud for a military lead execution based on suspicion of wrong doing. 

The fog of the word “terrorism” seems to cloud our eyes and engender a spirit of “The end justifies the means” amongst a large percentage of a population that would otherwise decry such behavior as contrary to the idea of the “rule of law” at the least, or even barbaric.  As a nation that does road shows the world over, pushing the critical value of the rule law as an essential underpinning of a free state, it bothers me that we are willing to overlook it so easily just because we really really don’t like this particular flavor of criminal.  I’m happy that these people are dead and can do no more harm.  But I think we, as Americans, need to take a hard look at who we are before we become what twisted those we fight.  We need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves

© 2011 Raymond Smith

Rock Paper Scissors

Many years ago (either thousands or millions or something like that) the only known method of food preparation commonly put into practice around the globe was basically one of two methods:

1) Whack or stab something until it died and put it in your mouth, or,

B) Pull something that doesn't appear poisonous out of the ground and put it in your mouth.

Over time, people (and by people I'm guessing women) figured out that if you use the fire that men invented you could transform raw food materials into something that was actually pleasurable to consume. Before long, some genius Neolithic chemist invented leavened bread. Bam!! The world was now a place full of culinary concoctions that would baffle the human imagination. Ten minutes later, an even greater genius figured out how to ferment it. The world had its first real vice.

The Greeks (or Spartans) first started enjoying the squishing of grapes through their toes and the taste of wine around 4500BC. The Persians first started brewing beer (good beer, not like Coors) somewhere around 3500 BC. By the middle ages, when most of Europe had decided it was fashionable to live in huge cities with no sanitation systems, and basically advanced to an unlivable cesspool, fermented beverages had become pretty much the only liquid someone could consume without it killing them. By about 1100, monks in Ireland and Scotland figured out how to produce whiskey, and at the same time destroy any chance of either culture leveling up past bar-room drunk. Fast forward a few hundred years and the vice that was booze was pretty much the favored libation in some form or another in every household, palace, mud hut, or wigwam around the globe.

When Europeans gallantly discovered the already discovered and inhabited lands of North America, the Indians not from India that lived there knew that, due to a vast technological delta in weaponry, there was only one shot at killing off the English squatters: They introduced them to tobacco. (That whole peace pipe thing was just a joke, Powhatan was trying to give John Smith cancer.) Smoking tobacco was an instant success in European court and became the overnight designer drug of the 1700s. It was so popular that even in the 1950's one would not find it uncommon to come across advertisements touting doctor recommended cigarettes.

Now, this may not be news to a few of people, but all of these things have something in common: They are bad for you and they are all a drug. We all know they are bad for you depending on how much you consume, blah blah blah. Alcohol was temporarily and laughing sort of halted in America after the Volstead Act of 1919, but after a few years, and backed by overwhelming popular demand, was back on the menu. The people had spoken; we like our vices, and that's final.

But something is missing from this list. Sneaking along in hit or miss popular use since about 2500BC was a little fast growing plant called cannabis. Various cultures from China to South America and everywhere in between had been smoking this stuff, either connected with some sort of ritual to celebrate something cool no one could remember, or just as an inspiration for Thracian Taco Bell throughout most of recorded history. And like the other drugs I've already mentioned, it's...brace yourself...bad for you. That's why it's illegal. Wait, what?

Why is Mary Jane illegal while booze, smokes, bacon fat, Twinkies, and Woopi Goldberg are not? It must be worse. Yeah that's it. If you smoke cigarettes you could get cancer, but if you smoke pot you'll grow a third eye in your ass (think about that...and how bad that would really, really be). Nope, that's not it. It's not as bad for you as too much sugar. Maybe it leads to violence and crime. We wouldn't want that on the streets right? Oh wait, we already have booze. The truth is that Marijuana is not illegal for any real moral or health reason. It's illegal because of Nylon.

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 made possession and transfer of cannabis illegal. The act was heavily supported by the newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst. Hearst was in bed with Andrew Mellon (Secretary of the Treasury and richest man in the world), and the Du Pont Family. Mellon was heavily invested in the Du Pont's new synthetic fiber, Nylon, and Hearst, in addition to newspapers, was a timber mogul. Their collective target was the hemp plant, which produces excellent natural fibers, is renewable, and grows faster than timber. But no one in their right mind is going to pass a law against super-paper. They needed to make America afraid of something...and fast.

Hearst's newspapers began running many articles vilifying cannabis as a scourge on society and specifically emphasized marijuana’s connection to violent crime. Yeah, they actually managed to convince the general public that a drug that could sedate Genghis Khan was leading people to rape, murder and attack midgets. Popular opinion swayed...check, congressman lobbied, check, point, set, match. Marijuana is evil, it will kill us all. So, grab your pitchforks, believe everything you read, run to the polls. The drug and it's bitch of sister, hemp, were duly criminalized so all the children would be safe from sleepy-eyed pot heads looking for a snack.

In the end Hearst was kind of right, he just didn't know it. Marijuana actually is connected to violent crime. It started when Hearst and his fiber-rich colleagues managed to criminalize it, and the war on drugs became mainstream news...which Hearst could report in his newspapers. Since 1937, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and billions of dollars have been wasted in and against the trafficking of one of the slightest threats to civilization in recorded history. The war on marijuana has to be the dumbest undertaking since Hadrian tried to keep the Romans out of Scotland by building a 3-foot wall.

Never doubt the power of the media to galvanize the sheep against the goats.

© Raymond Smith 2011

Did You Have the Fish?

The really hot news anchor lady looks at me dead in the eye during the 30 second news teaser that precedes my show about dueling barbers and says, “Is our air traffic control system truly safe?  Before you get on another plane; what you need to know at 10!”  It was just one of many reactions in the media and elsewhere that have popped up like some sort of spastic whack-a-mole to the recent reports of ATC employees neglecting their duties by either sleeping, or watching a movie, or doing needle point (or whatever ATC dudes do).  Be afraid, citizens!  Your thinking talking heads have spoken! Now: Everybody panic.

Okay, I get it.  Sensationalism sells news.  That’s not new, but a modicum of journalistic integrity wouldn’t be a complete disservice to the boob-tube adhesed proletariat.  Do the writers down at the local Baltimore station really believe that our nation’s air traffic control system is so fatally flawed that I am risk for even thinking of striding down the birth-canal of rapid transit that is the jet-way at my local terminal?  Of course they don’t think that, but they make a lot of people who believe the ATC system is populated by a collection of magic fairies think it’s true. 

The problem is that the going public doesn’t really just stop going.  That would actually make some sense in the realm of respect for causality.  Instead, the angry mob that still wants to be able to go from Upper Sandusky, OH to San Francisco for less money than a tank of gas for a Hummer H2 in 4 hours without the slightest of inconvenience (if only the Donner party were still alive to see us today) demands that anyone and everyone who was within 6 miles of the offending ATC facility be fired, drummed out of service, tarred and feathered, and drawn and quartered.  I think people should embrace a little perspective here.  Here we go.

Just last week, two Cleveland Center controllers who were working the graveyard shift were suspended for watching a DVD movie.  Granted, it’s dumb and they shouldn’t have been doing it.  A couple of weeks before that there were several incidents reported involving late-night tower controllers having been asleep at their posts.  Wrong? Yeah…cataclysmic?  Hardly.  Everyone and their brother jumped up and vilified these people for dozing off at nearly 3 a.m. at a tower where no planes were doing anything…at all…for hours.  So who is it that’s crying foul?

I would venture a guess that at least 90 percent of my dear friends on Facebook have fallen asleep at their desk (or work-equivalent for those who are fortunate enough not to have to have a desk) at least once in their career.  I know that most of them have spent time during their duty cycle playing a game on their computer, watching videos of people falling off skateboards, or any hundred of a thousand different interweb time-wasters.  But, oh, that’s right, that’s not a big deal because these guys hold the lives of thousands of people in their hands with each deft motion of their lips at that microphone.  Actually…not so much.

The VAST majority of airports in this and every other country do not have a control tower.    Of the ones that do, there are hundreds of commercial airports, supporting big fat airplanes that shut down their towers at night.  And get a load of this:  There are procedures that every pilot knows for landing at uncontrolled (non-towered) airports.   What?  How can it be possible for an airplane to land on a runway, all by itself, without being talked down like the Apollo 11 Moon lander?  Well, for starters, the pilot can see.  That helps.  Also he knows how to land a plane, definitely a bonus, oh…and check this out…this is the best part:  The pilot of an airliner has a gajillion dollars-worth of equipment on his plane to de-conflict him with other airplanes and help him land it all nice and smoothy-like!  In reality, it’s probably safer to just leave it to the pilots than involve the controllers.

As for the center controllers; do you even know what they do? They spend most of their time simply keeping IFR aircraft talking on the right frequencies.  Those planes they are controlling are in lanes and separated out by altitude blocks corresponding to direction of travel.  The planes are equipped with devices that broadcast their position to other airplanes (The equipment is required).  They have lights.  They are big.  They are shiny, the make big white streams of cloud behind them.   Oh, and did I mention pilots aren’t typically clinically blind?  Basically, it’s really hard at 35,000 feet to hit an airplane with another airplane.

I would never postulate that ATC controllers at centers and towers don’t provide a critical function for public safety.  It’s just not that big a deal if one of them loses focus for a bit in the wee hours of the morning.  Think about this; most of you will text while driving after reading this and still cast aspersions on decent ATC workers who lost their jobs for the same kind of thing most Americans do at work every day.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a report that’s due but there’s a video of a roller-skating pig over at The Chive.com I need to check out. 

Safe travels my friends…chances are…they will be.

© Raymond Smith 2011

Support the Family of a Fallen Hero

MSgt John Benner--Friend, husband, father, brother in arms--lost a long running battle with pancreatic cancer on 15 Feb 2011.  He is survived by his loving wife Debbie and children Zach and Lilly.  Please show your support and make a donation to help them in this extremely difficult time.

Saturn May Have Been Onto Something

What seems like 300 years ago when I met Big D, I was working construction and living in an apartment with my brother.  I made $8/hour and spent pretty much the bulk of that on rent, bills, pizza and beer.  Well, you could call it beer--Keystone light was the beer substitute I could afford in any measurable quantity.  When D and I got married and joined the service, we started out in a one-bedroom apartment.  We had her 14 year-old car that she had paid cash for with money she’d made waiting tables after high school.  (You’ll have to ask my sister what happened to my car)  Alexis’ crib was under the dinning area light next to the kitchen.  We had a bed, a card table, some handed down pots/pans, etc., and …well that’s about it.  Our disposable income after bills, gas, and food was about $30/month which we would use to rent the occasional movie.  And we were happier than a fat kid with a spoon and a jar of paste. (No offense Josh)

Now this isn’t intended to be some “up hill both ways” post.  We were also not alone in our situation…all our friends were in the same boat.  It’s just how it was; it was how you started out.  “Starting out” being the key phrase here.  You left home under whatever circumstances, maybe you had a little parental starter kit, but for the most part were on your own to scrape and scratch together a living.  The best thing about it was that there was nowhere to go but up, and having basically nothing was the greatest incentive in the world to work hard, get promoted, get educated, and make it better.  The current generation of young people starting out seems to have an entirely different set of expectations.

18-20 year-old kids today want it all, and they think they’re supposed to have it walking out the door.  The entitlement mentality issued to them by the boob-tube has them thinking that you are required to have a six-figure income, fancy car, omni-tron T.V., a bustling social ’lifestyle’, and all the responsibilities of a s 6-year-old hedge hog.  So, what follows is a few tips and pointers for all the young people just getting their first taste of that freedom from their evil parents they’ve been longing for.

• Do this first.  Walk around your parent’s house.  Notice I said ’parent’s’ house because as much as you may believe that everything around you is your personal field of green to use and abuse with impunity, I assure you it isn’t.   You will notice a lot of nice things.  There’s likely a nice T.V., nice furniture, a reasonably spacious accommodation,  cable entertainment and internet, etc.  Outside a few exceptions to the rule, all of this stuff did not well-up from a magic hole in the ground so your parent’s could pluck it like Manna from heaven when they were 22.  They accumulated all of it over the course of your life by working very hard for years and years and years.  And none of it is yours, so maybe you should start appreciating it.
• Assess your job skills.  You don’t have any.  In case you are wondering why the saint of an employer who agreed to take a risk by paying you to be a productive cog in his/her machine of his/her dreams isn’t willing to pay you $45/hour to take the trash out and mop floors, this is why.   The only reason they are paying you minimum wage is that they have to.  Your contributions to their evil corporate empire are likely to be worth about half of that…if you’re lucky.
• Understand that your social life is not the center of anyone’s world but yours.  It’s in everyone else’s way.  Your parents tolerate the narcissistic emotional mean attraction that is your life-consuming gregariousness with more patience than a Cambodian landmine waiting for a goat.  Your budding romance is annoying.
• Your high school education makes you smarter than a lot of people.  You already know this.  What you don’t know is the actual demographic--I will help you.  Your HS diploma is a certification that you are smarter than: A) Everyone who doesn’t have one. B) No one else.  Contrary to what you’ve allowed yourself to believe because your teacher lauded you for your last writing assignment, or by that debate you won with arguments you  Googled, you actually…truly…I mean really really really really…don’t know shit.
• Moving out of your parent’s house is not going to be a sweet release into nirvana.  (And yes, nirvana is a word that actually means something, it’s not just a bad band from the 90’s).  If you think the world of your parent’s making is ‘oppressing your free expression’ and ‘smothering you with rules’, wait until you get out of it and into your own world.  It will wrinkle your mind!   All that time you thought you were going to have for heavy petting and kanoodeling with your heart-throb romantic interest--yeah there isn’t going to be any.  If you’re going to college, you will be spending every waking second either working, studying, or taking care of your apartment so that your roommates don’t evict you.  And yes, you will have roommates because otherwise you will starve to death.  Oh, and roommates could give two shits about your social life either…they just want you to pay your bills and do your share of the house work. 
• Life experience:  You don’t have any of that either.  All that stuff your parent’s tell you that you think is unreasonable, stupid, and just because they just ‘don’t understand you’, is actually real knowledge that they picked up over many years by making choices--some good, some bad, but they learned something over the years and they’re trying to help you cut that corner.  There is only one thing your parent’s haven’t learned:  Trying to help you won’t work because you’re arrogant and all-knowing and insist upon learning hard lessons the hard way.  So…knock yourself out.  But in a few years (hopefully you’re not in jail, dead, or a single parent), you’ll realize that they actually knew what they were talking about.

Of the few people who read this, some will agree with me and others will lambaste me as a complete fool.  Those people fall in to two categories respectively: Old bastards like me who know stuff, and under 20’s that will think I’m full of shit because they already know everything.  So I guess I probably should have just spent my morning eating pie instead of writing this because it won’t make a lick of difference.

© Raymond Smith 2010

You'll Put Your Eye Out!

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool...but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog" --G.K. Chesterton


I never thought I would say this in a million years.  But, last week, the Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, actually did something reasonable, sensible, and intelligent.  Of course, a week later he was undone by his own city council, but at least we can give him points for trying.  I may actually lay a golden egg for writing this, but….wait for it…there are actually people in this world more liberal than the Mayor of San Francisco!  Yeah.  I think I just divided by zero.

During the November elections, San Francisco law makers approved a city ordinance that would ban fast food restaurants from including toys in kid’s meals unless those meals met a certain standard for healthiness.  I would put the figures for actual healthiness here but I don’t want to and because your Google works just as well as mine.  Anyway, the week after the elections, Mayor Newsom, defying the laws of man and god, vetoed the measure saying, “That law is totally gay.”  (He didn’t say that, but that would have been really funny if he had.)  Not to be outdone, the city counsel promptly brushed other, less important city business to the side in order to rally in support of the measure.  Because, honestly, if one more week went by it could be your child killed by a Happy Meal.  The counsel voted to overturn Boromir and allow Frodo and Sam to take the ring to…wait…what just happened.

So let it be written, so let it be done!  The good city of San Fran has saved your children from salt and fat and badness of all types by keeping your child from being tempted by the $.04 treasures that accompany the junk food we’ve enjoyed by choice for over a thousand years. (That’s an estimate)  That’s one way of looking at it, here’s another:  The city of San Fransicko has decided that you are not responsible enough to raise your own children in the manner you see fit.  You are not smart enough to decide how often your kid should be allowed to eat this or that.  You are stupid and the city must step in and do your thinking and your choice-making for you--you poor miserable uneducated stupid citizen. And sadly, there is a lot of this country that doesn’t see a problem with this.

Have we really ascended to such an advanced stage of progressive enlightenment as to be willing to abdicate our personal liberties and responsibilities to a higher “thinking body” just to satiate our laziness?  Month after month we hand over more and more of our right to choose so that the government, be it local or federal, can make those choices for us.  Several years ago people thought it was pure insanity when New York City first banned smoking inside places of business.  Now it’s everywhere.  We have laws telling us what we can eat and drink, and what restaurants can put in your food.  Our noble fathers keep us safe with helmet laws, seat belt laws, bicycle laws, and yes…roller skating laws.

There is a proposed law in Missouri to force liquor stores to only sell beer over 60°F (not the outside temperature, I’m talking about the temp of the beer itself).  Some brain trust thinks this will curb drunk driving.   There are taxes on unhealthy ingredients in food.  Laws stipulating the portion sizes restaurants can serve.  Have you heard of ‘Keg Tracking”?  Your beer keg has a GPS device to track  your movements.  Someone thinks this will stem underage drinking.   Playgrounds have “No Running” signs.  Normal childhood games, like Tag and Redrover, have been banned because there is the potential that your precious little snowflake might not return home from school in the package-perfect, unopened collector’s condition in which you sent him.  At what point is the general proletariat going to accept compulsory bubble-wrap before we are allowed to venture outside of our choice-proofed safety dwellings (government approved) to ride the seatbelt-secured walking-speed personal conveyance system (government supplied) to get to the grocery store where you can purchase four different flavors of ‘Food’.

The entire country is going to look like it was gobbled up by Fisher Price and we’re going to be eating USDA Choice Soilent Green!  DAMN IT!!!!

People need to be free to live their lives.  They need to be able to make their choices and live and learn from the consequences of those choices.  If you want to be a paragon of health, have fun.  If you want to be a fat lazy bastard with Cheetos hiding under your man-boobs--go nuts.  The best part of life is living it, enjoying it, taking the risks you want and not taking the ones you don’t.  If you want to smoke…smoke.  You know the risks,  but you’re a grown ass man so do what you want.  You want to really live on the edge and drive to the mail box without wearing your seat belt…be extreme my friend! Get down with your bad self and put a little ketchup on that corndog so that it can reach its full goodness potential.

I’m not a fan of Woody Allen’s movies, or his glasses, or his voice, or well, mostly Woody Allen, but I do like this quote from him, “I could live to be a hundred, but I’d have to give up everything that would make me want to.”

So stop letting your lawmakers stop your fun!  And for those of you worried about the consequences of other people doing stupid shit that can hurt them: Dr. Darwin is always there waiting to take care of them in his own, special way.  That, and there’s Youtube.

God's Lovely Turnip

Last week Big D and I had the opportunity of visiting Monticello.  For those that don’t keep up on the large houses of old dead rich white dudes, Monticello was the home of Thomas Jefferson back when he was writing really wordy things and making mulatto babies.  The house and grounds are both impressive and T.J. was an impressive man.  That said, there was still a glaring contradiction about his life that no one during the tour was able to completely reconcile.  How could the man who wrote the operating system for the freedom of all people own slaves his whole life?  The tour guide (who was actually quite knowledgeable) attempted to speak to this, but didn’t really have any answers.  And there’s something else.  How is it that 250 years later we still haven’t learned a damn thing from it?

The efforts behind the Declaration of Independence were a grass-roots movement to break from one of the longest held traditions in human history: The idea that person’s worth and station in life was issued at birth.  The American soon-to-be traitors to the crown had an interesting idea; that everyone born into this world should be afforded the right to go about their life in the manner of their choosing, and so long as they don’t try to hinder someone else from doing the same, make their way however they saw fit.  T.J. penned a document clearly stating that people should be free to practice any religion tickled their nipple, adhere to whatever values enriched their lives,  and basically get their business done without the government putting it’s wiener in their chili about what god they pray to, what color is their favorite, or whether they like to date fat women or not.

As most people are aware, approximately six seconds after the ink dried on the Declaration, the sky opened up and started raining big fat turds of hypocrisy as more than 80% of the old white dudes drafting up these lofty notions of utopia owned and mistreated human beings, and beat their wives for not cleaning the microwave oven after cooking ox tales. (That really messes up the nuke)  But we managed to evolve beyond  this contravention…eventually and with a bit of a skirmish in the mid-late 1860s.  So smooth seas on the good ship Freedom after that right?  Yeah….no.

Freedom of religion was a major tenet of the DoI. (Most people don’t know that John Adams tried like hell to include verbiage decrying Jefferson as “A giant doosh.)  Religious values go with religion (Yeah, I know, it didn’t take a rocket surgeon to come up with that)  The majority of colonists at the time were puritanical Christians who’s morals and values led  them to lead exciting lives wrought with adventures like “Missionary Position” and  rumpus sex for the sole purpose of procreation.  They were expressing their religious freedom. And what’s the first order of business when celebrating religious freedom:  Organize the government around your idea of God and hammer out a 36 volume set of laws establishing protestant values as a legal framework for America.  Okay, something doesn’t match up.

Why is polygamy and bigamy against the law?  Why are we having legal battles over whether gays and lesbos can get married?  Why is prostitution illegal?  Who decided that the nuclear family of the 1950’s was the only unit of ménage acceptable within our legal system?  These laws come from the moral underpinnings taken from a snapshot through a window of time in human history.  They reflect the values of Puritan Protestant Christians between 1600-1800.   In fact, all of these practices (and a lot of others) existed for centuries under Christianity, Judaism, and Islam and were perfectly acceptable.  So how did the greatest endeavor for freedom and enlightenment turn right around and impose a singular religious will on society and its legal framework?  But, more importantly, why are we still freaking doing it?

If one man is crazy enough to think that it’s a good idea to have ask for a kitchen pass from three nagging women (I mean, beautiful maidens of goodness and virtue) what do I care?  Does their goofy 4-person marriage somehow stand in the way of my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?  A couple of years ago the feds and local cops in Texas (pronounced ’Tayhas’)  raided a compound of polygamists, took their children away, threw the men in jail, and basically up-ended their entire apple cart and made a hot mess of it.  And what evil did they uproot?  What pestilence of human misery did the stalwart do-gooders save us all from?  These people were just living their lives in accordance with their values.  Their children were loved, cared for, and educated.  While their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness was unconventional, it worked for them.  Were their kids likely to grow up and rob convenience stores to buy meth?

People make the argument that a gay couple can’t  raise well adjusted children.  Because, yeah, heterosexuals are doing a bang-up job of that lately.  I’d hazard to guess that a loving couple of flamers or lipstick lesbians has a much better shot at raising a rug-rat to become a productive member of society than a single hetro-mother of six on welfare with a cocaine habit.  And that’s not even the real point.  Does their way of life get in the way of yours?  What are they taking from you?  How is it that a polygamists values are criminal because they differ from yours?  How does some dude paying for sex impact your financial future?  What do you care?  I may not like your way of life and you may not like mine.  That’s the beauty of this place…or at least it was supposed to be.

This country was founded on the principle that anyone should be able to go about their life in the manner of their choosing, so long as they don’t hurt the poor saps around them trying to eek out a living of their own.  Yet still, 200 years later, as the fabric of American destiny includes threads that follow religions ranging from Scientology to Eckankar and the whole VHF spectrum of values, we continue to allow our laws to reflect the values of one religion…and even that one only selectively.   This is America, the land of the free…so long as you prescribe to the values of Christian European dissidents of the 1700’s.  If you want to celebrate freedom, try just living your life and letting someone else do the same.  Because that, my friends, is America.

© Raymond Smith 2010

Tobi Keith for President

Folks: This is why the Republican Party comes off as a bunch of backwards hicks.

Kurt XXXXXXX I want Obama to look directly in the faces of families who lost loved
ones on 911 and the military families who lost there loved ones fighting
those terrorists after that and tell them he supports a Mosque at
ground zero! That's it for me...Impeach now!!!!

...

See More

http://www.Facebook/

www.Facebook

4 hours ago · Comment ·  · Share · Report

• 4 people like this.
• • Raymond Smith I get that it may not be a well thought out decision for the owners of the mosque to 'want' to put it there, but unless someone re-wrote the bill of rights last night, we still enjoy freedom of religion in this country. They have just as much right to purchase private property, file the same zoning permits and put a mosque there as any other religion with any other church.

    4 hours ago ·  · 
  • John XXXXXXX
     zoning rule #1 To promote and protect the health, safety, comfort, morals, welfare, convenience and necessity of the public. The public is generally uncomfortable and think its morally wrong for this to be in "this location". if the govt wasn't bought and paid for they would do their jobs and stop this. following the zoning rules and leave the religion part out of it would be a great idea.

    4 hours ago · 
  • Raymond Smith 

    That is a ludicrous argument. I'm pretty sure the 1st amendment trumps a local zoning guideline. (one which I suspect you just made up) Do you think the general public is thrilled to death to have the Westboro Baptist Church in their backyard? If this organization isn't violating a law through the practice of it's religion then it has the legal right, as much as any other church, to practice there, period...and there is absolutely no law, state, local, or federal that would prevent them from doing so.
    
    The zoning rules exist to ensure that commercial enterprises don't intrude on residential, etc. If this was a Christian church, would you care? Leave the religion out of it? That's all your pissed about. If ANY church of ANY kind would be allowed to operate there, so can this one.
    
    Yes, it's a 'bought and paid for government' that's allowing a group of faith-seekers to exercise their constitutional right to build a church. That's the dumbest thing I've read in at least a month.

    3 hours ago ·  · 
  • Kurt XXXXXX  

    Ray. Yes, I understand your argument. However, putting the mosque 2 blocks from ground zero is a extremely poor decision. At some point someone has to say "enough" and stop this. Perhaps we could put some big pictures inside the mosque of the terrorists that committed this act? Then we could say that they were martyrs against the west and heroes of Islam. Would this be enough? Yes, the bill of rights needs to be addressed here.

    
    

    The second amendment provides the right to bear arms. Do you think that means it's OK to carry weapons into a school and start killing the innocent? No, our forefathers would be absolutely appalled at what this country has become. Granted I wasn't there when it was written however, I'm sure that this was NOT the intent. Someone MUST exercise their civic RESPONSIBILITY!! and call for a re-write or analysis of the bill of rights. However, you as well as I, know that no one will agree on what to do. That is called politics. That is why Obama is holding the safety of AZ and the Nation hostage because he can't get of his a** and make congress and the house address this issue. What then. Will it take the Martyrs brigade marching thru the border going to Wal-mart to buy weapons to facilitate committing crimes and kill people because they have rights?? more to follow...

    3 hours ago · 
  • Donnie XXXXXX You're wrong Raymond, it was a WELL THOUGHT out decision by the owners of the mosque. Just as it was a WELL THOUGHT out decision to take down the towers and park a plane in the Pentagon. Had it been a bunch Catholics, Baptists or Protestants that took down the towers I'd be just as pissed. Another difference being you can visit any demonination church you'd like without joining. Try going to Mosque to visit and see if you can get in.

    3 hours ago · 
  • Kurt  XXXXX I'm tired of hearing that people have rights and they are not LEGAL citizens of this country. I have rights!!!
    
    Yes this is the same thing as building a mosque in NYC. The bill of rights is outdated and antiquated. It needs revision.

    3 hours ago · 
  • John  XXXXXX When you reach a point in which law trumps common sense and the will of the people....then your on the verge of collapse. Were almost there.

    3 hours ago · 
  • Raymond Smith 

    ‎@Donnie: Unless I missed a memo or news report somewhere, I'm pretty sure the owners and parishioners of this mosque weren't the people who brought down the towers. I'm fairly certain that it was a terrorist organization based in the Middle East. You do realize that not all Muslims are terrorists right? You really need to re-read the bigotry you just wrote mate. That's the same way of thinking that motivated the people who attacked our country.
    
    @Kurt: You're tired of hearing how people have rights? How sad for you. You say you are a patriot of a country the most important strength of which is its rights, but you want to take those rights from someone of a different faith and ethnicity than you?
    
    @John: When you reach the point that ignorant hatred, xenophobia, and bigotry trump the rule of law you have chaos. Justice falls by the way-side and the only people left are the people of hate...that would be people like you and Al Qaeda.
    
    All three of you need to take a breath, put your hatred back into your pockets for a minute, and really re-read the things you've just written. You call yourselves Americans, yet you're championing everything that's wrong with the world and wholly un-American.
    
    The terrorists hearts are twisted, and you will become the same as that which twisted them.

    2 hours ago ·  · 
  • John  XXXXXX Ok ray... basically your reference to me and Al Qaeda is pretty out of line. Being prior military and considering you know nothing about me , it leads me to believe you could be an incredible prick. Please bleed somewhere else

    2 hours ago ·  ·  1 person
  • Donnie  XXXXX 

    Unless I missed the memo, if ANYONE builds a memorial, that is what this mosque is, near someplace that has deep seated wounds with someone else. that pretty much tells me that they are spitting on the very people that protect their right to build such a thing.
    
    How do you know that these folks don't have ties to the ones that brought down the towers?
    
    Let me guess, you voted for Obama didn't you?
    
    You don't have to answer that one.

    2 hours ago · 
  • Raymond Smith 

    ‎@ John: My reference to you and Al Qaeda is accurate. You think they way they think. You and people like you are part of the problem. You're prior military? Well I guess it's good that you're out, because I don't need ignorant hate-mongers in the military I still serve.
    
    @ Donnie: A Mosque is not a memorial, it's a place of worship for people of the Muslim Faith. And they are Americans too. Did you miss that one? Are you aware that over 350 Muslims died in the WTC? Do you know how many Muslims fight in the U.S. Military in Afghanistan?
    
    There is absolutely no merit whatsoever to either of your arguments. They don't even pass the test of the most basic logic. You're just spouting rhetoric and bullshit. Clearly neither of you have the faintest idea of what you're even trying to talk about.
    
    You're so ignorant that you've even mistaken me for a liberal...fools. Your arguments aren't conservative, they're retarded. Real conservatives believe in America, the United States Constitution, and the rule of law.
    
    Let me guess, you were too lazy to research a candidate and just voted for whomever Sean Hannity told you to vote for.
    
    And no, I didn't vote for Obama.

    2 hours ago ·  ·  2 people · 
  • Jason  XXXXXX  

    I think we are losing focus here...I dont have a legal right to say what can be build or where (just like all of you as well), I think it would be in extremely poor taste to build it that close. I think the 60 plus percent of New Yorkers (that said the didnt want it that close) should have a say in the matter though.
    
    But, during this argument today the US has lost atleast one more soldier and other coalition forces have had atleast one casualty in Afghanistan as well, trying to fight the war that started this arguement.

    about an hour ago · 
  • Donnie XXXXXX  

    You Raymond are the f'n idiot. It's people like you in the military that has caused it to go downhill the way it has.
    
    I served my 22 yrs in the Air Force so I know quite well what I was fighting for and sure as hell it wasn't so someone could come in here and slap us in the face. But hey, it's the kindler, gentler America now. Let's just open the broders and let them all in. Oh that's right, NObama is trying to do that also.
    
    I should have said, that is what THIS mosque is. You know damn good and well that if anybody were to go to their country and try and build a church what would happen.
    
    You're not worth my time anymore.

    20 minutes ago ·  ·  1 person
  • Raymond Smith 

    I'm so glad I don't live in their country. I'm glad I live in this country where people respect each other (or, at least we used to) and actually believe in our own constitution and our code of laws. I would rather the mosque wasn't built there. I would rather the owners did it in a location less inflammatory. But, taking measure to prevent them from doing so is exactly the same thing that goes on in the countries you hate.
    
    You just said it yourself...good grief, I can't believe you can't see it. You just said that basically their countries suck because they do EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT TO DO...prevent a religion other than your own from exercising it's rights.
    
    How do you not fall down more?

    a few seconds ago ·  ·