Child like work

Oh my, Apple Computer has admitted to using children to build computers, Ipods and Iphones. Yikes.

First, as someone who owns a few children, I can not understand how Apple was able to get the children to focus on anything, especially anything electronic. So, first off, congratulations to Apple Computer for finding children who can focus.

Oh, I see, reading the article these children were not American children. It is all so much clearer now.

The good news is that the majority of Apple suppliers no longer hire children. The bad news, that is not 100% of the suppliers are onboard with the whole "no child left behind on the factory floor" concept. I have a few Mac computers. A bunch of Ipods and at least two Iphones. Should I turn my back on Apple?

I think the bigger question is why are companies not more vigilant about who works for them, even as foreign suppliers? These sorts of stories are more than a corporate black eye. It is disgusting when companies could not get away with something in America, so they do it someplace else. No lead in children's toys? Make them in China. Want kids making you Nike shoes? Have them manufactured in Vietnam. Want an Ipod? Ask a child to make it.

These companies would never think of doing this shit in their own countries. This always comes out at some point, but in the meantime profits rule, honor is probably a new body perfume.

Answering emails

It is weird enough that people bother to email me about this blog, what is stranger is that they ask me questions, not only about the stuff that gets tossed up here, but about personal stuff as well.

First, a question that has been asked numerous times over the past week, why no new posts? Busy times right now, I get home from long days working as a dirt farmer and my fingers are sore, my back is in pain and my tiny little brain refuses to function. I have also been trying to celebrate black history month, and since today is the final day of the month, it is time for me to stop focusing on the history of blacks and get back to focusing on important things, like this blog.

On questioner asked me why I put clips on the site from YouTube. Mostly it is out of boredom and laziness. Plus, I have been celebrating black history month and my focus has been dimmed.

I have been asked a few times about Chinese food. I am never quite sure why people bother to email me about chinese food, except for the fact that I am something of an expert on finding the cheapest chinese food in all the land. About two blocks from my house is the cheapest and worst chinese food in America. I never recommend it to anyone. I went there once and was sick for days. There is a certain amount of skill in finding cheap, but good, chinese food. There is a place in Albany that we used to frequent, but I forget what the name is. I know I have its phone number on my cell, so if you are in Albany and want cheap chinese food, write again.

A fat man asked me why I write about fat people with outrage and derision. I don't, well, I do, but I am a fat guy, so I feel like I am speaking to my friends. That and I do believe fat people are like smokers, they are out among us in public committing suicide and no one seems to care. I am a big believer in allowing people to make choices, even stupid unhealthy choices, but that does not mean we should just be silent. I come from a long line of fat smokers and all I can say is the vast majority of fat smokers I have known are gone and sometimes my anger at their leaving boils to the top.

I have a lot of cyclists who stay in touch, read the blog in general and know about my life in details I find upsetting. A couple have asked about my riding. When we moved last summer I was so overwhelmed with the move, the work that needed to be done to our house and trying to stay busy and make some money (I had been ripped off by a fat person and needed cash, quickly) that I kind of put cycling on the back burner. I became a serious cyclist about a decade ago, it made me healthy, cleared my head, allowed me to find some sort of peace and kept me strong on a variety of levels. A few years ago I crashed a bike on some black ice, which led to all sorts of brain troubles and an honest fear or road cycling. When riding on roads I like to ride hard and fast. My new years resolution this year has been to get back into serious cycling shape and when spring is here I plan to be back on the road. Given my history with cycling and speed, if I crash again, I expect to bounce back and smile a lot.

Finally I was asked recently about advice on vacations. I have just started saving for a vacation this summer. I love vacations. I am not good about going to the beach and loafing, I like to go to beautiful cities with a history and spend time getting to know it. My first day in Amsterdam a long time ago was spent hitting thrift stores and smoking pot. Get into the scene, so to speak. So, my advice to people who write, take a vacation that involves doing things you have never done in places you have never visited.

Finally part two, my friend Tony and Vanessa own a great restaurant in Sharon Springs, the Black Cat. I miss them, but I miss their food even more. I am planning to sneak out of here and visit them in the next month or so. So should you.

A little sunday music

Is that a racist penis in your pocket?

Everyone has a mother

This just cracks me up, mostly because I miss my own mother, and if she were in this same situation, she too would be smacking a woman with her purse, and my mothers purse was always huge and filled with god knows what.

Why republicans may not win in 2010

The Conservative wing of the wingnuttiest of all parties is meeting this week. During the regular racist rants, words of wisdom from the fake tanned zealots and the weird and crazy reasoning why many elected republicans hated the presidents stimulus program and could not wait to run home and brag about the money from the program. Strange republicans and they expect to win big in elections this fall.

Strange indeed. But my new favorite from the bumper sticker brainless is this photo above. Yes, that is some sort of woman, with the bumper sticker of choice of republicans. That will teach those wanting to marry homos.

Brilliant.

The retardation of America

You can go here to see some amazing clips from this weeks outrage, the Sarah Palin taking offense at a joke controversy.

What I really like about this is the fight back. For many months Ms. Palin has hammered anyone who gets in her semi-retarded way, the angry beauty queen complaining about explicit photos being on the internet. No one wants to pick a fight because she has a bully pulpit paid for by Fox News. Of course, Family Guy is produced by Fox, so there is something almost inbred about this particular controversy.

Anyway, check the link, it is both funny and disturbing.

How did this happen?

I was on a job today, a job that required me to go to a couple of stores and video tape the interior to get the layout for a commercial shoot scheduled for March.. It was a low stress job, me and a camera. The stores are grocery stores, not high end, but they sell fresh fruits and vegetables and had a decent amount of pretty much everything else.

The first store looked to be inhabited by extras from a Fellini film. These were not just unhealthy people, and often obese too, but they just looked seriously unhealthy. For the life of me I could not figure it out. It was a zombie movie come to life, except that the zombies had fake tans, bad makeup, meth face and talked really really loud.

I figured it was the neighborhood. I drove about 30 miles to the other store, in a much "nicer" area. My lord, it's almost like they bussed the same customers to the new store. It was even more filled with loud, obnoxious and unhealthy crowds. People asked me about the camera, and I would tell them not to worry, I was shooting groceries and not people. It was not they who had to worry, it was me. Zombies scare the shit out of me and I was surrounded.

What the hell happened to America? Was there not a time just a few years ago when everyone was doing yoga and eating healthy diets? Did I miss something? Was there an announcement that basically said screw it, go back to unhealthy foods, smoke cigarettes and speak in public as if you were yelling to deaf elderly people.

I did my job, filmed the stories, the lighting, the aisles. I went back to my office, handed in the tape and told my story. Everyone laughed and thought I was joking. I left before they reviewed the tape, the evidence.

Maybe Sarah Palin is retarded

The former 1/2 term governor of the almost empty state of Alaska has come out fighting against cartoon depictions of retarded cartoon characters. Maybe she needs a real job.

If I had the time on my hands I would spend each and every day complaining about something. Just yesterday, my daughter texted me at midnight asking if she could spend the night with her boyfriend. I think it was an effort to slip through my always on patrol fatherly advice front, by catching me when I am close to sleep. Nice try. Now, had I the time to bitch and complain, I would start with free texting programs and late night texting skills of teenagers. Then I would blame Fox News for telling kids that sex is evil, thus making boundary pushing teens want to try it, in a variety of beds.

But I am busy. I hardly have time to even answer texts, much less read them. I certainly have no time to complain about every injustice. What I really do not have time for? Complaining about cartoons. Someone should tell former governor stupid that cartoons are not real people. You may also want to inform the quitting former governor that if she was not hot as hell no one would care what stupid words were falling out of her open mouth-hole.

Sarah Palin is retarded. She picks arguments with cartoon makers. She picks arguments with terrorists and others who have no Fox News soap box to scream from. She is a stupid woman, but fun to look at. Fox News seems to only hire vapid morons, but the women seem to have walked off the runways of white trash beauty pageants.

The joy of not having cable or any other TV delivery device in our home is that we do not have ready access to TV shows. We do watch some shows via the internet, one of which happened to be the recent Family Guy episode where the loser son dates an obvious Down Syndrome teen age girl. At some point during the date the boy (I think) says something to the effect that the girls mother was the former governor of Alaska. This upset the timid and idiotic thinking of Ms. Palin. Why? Does she have a teenage girl with Down Syndrome in her home? No. She has a baby boy with Down Syndrome. But Ms. Palin, who apparently believes every bad joke about children with any sort of disease is focused on her. She is clearly retarded.

Kiss off

Personally I have never taken part in a public kissing thing. I have never even been invited. A bit of controversy in Paris when a bunch of the gays got together for a public kissing event. The first part of the video shows the kissing, the second has some people responding to the kissing.

First, when people are kissing, if you watch the video, it is hard to tell male from female and which gender is kissing which. Why is that cool? Because kissing, like sex, like love, like most everything, does not have a gender approval necessary to make is good. So, my gay brothers and sisters, kiss away.

Second, straight people, my straight brothers and sisters, give it a break. Who cares who kisses who? Personally, I hate to see obese people kiss, because it seems like one may be trying to eat the other. Do I ever respond to piggy people making out? No, well, sometimes I throw up a little in my mouth, but I never let it out.

Finally, who cares? Really, it's almost 2010, or something, can we just get over these things already? Gay people kiss, straight people kiss, people have sex, people do all sorts of things that I either find amazing or disgusting, and it does not matter. Kiss away, a lot.

15 years

Today is the 15 year anniversary of our house burning down, right in front of our eyes. My babies and I escaped relatively unhurt.

I was never a believer is the Valentines Day candy monopoly, but it was that day, 15 years ago, that my babies and I were preparing to go buy chocolates for an undeserving person. The fire started on the first floor, as we were all prepping to leave on the second. The alarms started, the smoke followed and we escaped out of a window, onto a snow covered room and into a blood covered car. It was all very dramatic.

We survived. That was all that was important. There were may lessons learned that day. One was that stuff is never important, even the important stuff is not important. The things we give power to, papers, artwork, clothes, pictures are all stuff that can either be replaced or will not be necessary to replace.

Children and relationships are more important than any of that stuff. I think the kids escaped with no scars, mental or physical from that moment, 15 years ago. They may have even taken away the knowledge that stuff will never be more important than love. For that, we should be grateful that 15 years ago our house burned right in front of our eyes.

Swan song

There was an interesting story this morning on NPR about the return to England of a flock of swans and how experts have noticed that a couple that had been together for years has apparently divorced, or whatever it is that swans do.

Important to note that swans mate for life. Unlike humans, who mate for, well, minutes. I could be wrong, but the report indicated that the vast majority of swans choose a lover, travel with the lover, mate with the lover, raise babies with the lover and stay with the lover for life. The experts noted that at least two couples have gone their separate ways, finding new loves and leaving behind their promise of life long companionship.

It does make me wonder about love and loss. Humans like to believe in long term commitment, but in my own personal study, most people do not mate for life, or even stay married for life and again, in my own personal study, those that do stay married for long periods of time, often times are not "loyal" to that singular person.

My study? Well, I have been asking questions for friends and others for many years. I began to seriously ask questions when I started to see many of my friends and neighbors getting divorced. In my simple mind I always thought people would separate or divorce because the passion, or sex, was no longer as important to one partner or the other. My own bias was sex was the glue that kept a relationship vital. I was wrong, or at least, my study indicated I was wrong.

In interview after interview I found people would divorce for a variety of reasons, sex being on the list, but never the most important aspect of a relationship faltering. There were always other reasons, physical violence, lies, unfulfilled potential, growing apart - the list is really endless, or so it seems. One thing i did note, many people got divorced right about the time the youngest child went to school. That was almost a constant. The reasons I would hear were always varied, but the bottom line in the majority of failing relationships was the baby of the family entered school.

I would never speak for others, but I did listen to many of them, men and women, happy and sad, sexy and not so sexy and everyone had a different reason for leaving their partners. I often spoke with breaking couples, the wife offering a reason and the husband a different reason, but in the end it was never simple. One couple broke up because the wife found women to be better lovers than men. Hard to argue with that, until I found a husband who went gay, and his reasoning was that it felt more natural to be with men, and again I could not argue.

Relationships are hard to comprehend. I am still not sure we are not meant to be lone wolves, sexing it up with willing partners for a time, and then moving on. I know a couple of people in happy long term relationships, but the vast majority of the people I know in long term relationships are not so happy, often times complaining about the complexities and the trade offs and how they wish they had it all to do over again. So many of these trade off people are stuck in neurotic relations, convinced that they could no longer get into a dating mode, so they settle. Unhappy for a long time, but convinced it is better than the unhappiness they would be forced to experience alone.

The swans teach us a lesson. Go into it ready for a life long commitment, but be prepared, like a good boy scout, for whatever may come your way.

The alphabet is important, right?

A U.S. soldier has been accused of 'waterboarding' his four-year-old daughter because she couldn't recite the alphabet.
Joshua Tabor admitted to police that he used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry.
As his daughter 'squirmed' to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face - upwards - three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.
Tabor, 27, admitted to investigators that his daughter was terrified of water and he had deliberately chosen the punishment.
The practice of waterboarding has been used by the CIA to break Al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay and at secret prisons.
Detainees, including the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had water poured over their face until they feared they were about the drown.
President Barack Obama has since outlawed the practice.
Tabor, a soldier at a base in Tacoma, Washington, flew into a rage after his daughter was unable to recite her ABC's.
As his girlfriend looked on he grabbed the child and placed her on the kitchen counter before submerging her face upwards into a bowl of water.
Police Sgt Rob Carlson said the punishment was carried out because the girl would not recite the alphabet.
When police spoke to the girl they noticed she had bruising on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat.
When asked how she got the bruises, the girl replied: 'Daddy did it.'
During a police interview Tabor admitted holding his daughter underwater.
Police initially came to arrest him after he'd been seen walking around the neighbourhood wearing his Kevlar helmet and threatening to break windows.
Officers only found out about the alleged waterboarding when they went to Tabor's home.
He has been charged with second degree assault and ordered to remain on his army base with no contact with his daughter or girlfriend.
The child has been taken into care by social workers.

Goals are good

Tea Party

Bats everywhere

Super bowling

HIGH-FIVE SUPER BOWL! - watch more funny videos

Snow falls

I grew up in Southern California and did not see snow until my teens, and that was on a ski trip. Today, we woke up to 17 inches, which at some times in life would be intimidating, but today, it was just beautiful.

Weatherman Freaking Out Over DC Snowpocalypse
by TheDlisted

Happy and gay

Oh my gay brothers, do you really have any idea what it would mean to get married or serve in the military? See, I have not served in the military, although when I was 18 I tried. I did everything I could to join the Air Force, but in the end, I did not. I was married for 10 long and grueling years. It was a terrible time for both me and the country, but in the end I escaped.

Gays, my brothers and sisters, is there any sense about your desires? Oh sure, there are certain tax and insurance benefits from the paper that includes the word marriage. I can honestly tell you, do not do it.

But it is this talk of military service that is very strange. When I was begging to be part of the Air Force there was no war, it seemed like a couple of years of hijinks and silliness, but now we are at war all the time. If you join now it will not be pillow fights with buff marines, it will be sand battles with toothless Taliban.

Lucky for the gays, because always lovable Bill Clinton made a pact with the devils and outlawed any sort of gayness in the military back in the 90's. Remember the 90's? Wait, I was married in the 90's. The 90's were a dangerous and hectic time, filled with mixed messages and eternal damnation. If Bill Clinton did the gays any favors it was making sure they would not see serious military time for any possible upcoming wars.

Now of course, the gays want to be married, they want to serve openly in an army that loves and supports them. These gays may be insane, but that is not for me to judge. Let's leave it to the military leadership, who must just hate the idea of a bunch of homo's running around playing with their guns. Here then, the head of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, take it away.

"“I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. “For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”

Oh my.

Anyone else ever get that sinking feeling when they see leadership actually support something that seemed impossible to support just a year or two ago? Hey gays, be careful what you wish for. In fact, when people start seriously allowing gays to marry, give me a call.

Elder statesman

I got my notice yesterday in the mail, snail mail I should say and mean it ironically.

There it was, a shiny letter, telling me of my new status. My opinion is worthy. So there.

I am officially an elder statesman, and all that something like that carries. I take it that finally, with church and government approval, my words matter.

First off, parents, listen up, no smoking. What is wrong with you? (see what a little elder statesman status does?) Smoking is stupid for an adult to do, but around children with developing brains and lungs? Idiotic.

Now that I'm an elder statesman, I think I should comment on politics. Obama is black. That much we can all agree on, let's move on.

Second. There should be laws that stop people from being mean.

I really think I wear this elder statesman thing quite well, thank you so much.

Lastly, on a more serious note, there was a time in American history that you did not know the complexities of the people surrounding you in public places. Never did I think that the person standing next to me at the bus stop had a new STD, or computer, or anything. It never dawned on me to even wonder about the private life of the person standing next to me, or the shoe salesman, or the guy repairing my cable. It was really none of my business. It turns out that some of these people are damn close to retarded. How did I find this out? I listened to their cell phone conversations. You can learn a lot about your fellow man, and woman (!) without ever really violating their privacy. You just have to listen.

First off, one of the things I have learned, older people speak really loudly. The problem is, according to my studies, most of their conversations revolve around golf, dinner and picking something up at the store. Very boring. In fact, there should be a federal program that forces elderly people to be more interesting. You know why? Because there are a lot of them and many have cell phones and many are walking around, speaking loudly into their phones, as if the key to cell communication was volume.

Yell less, do strange things more, my advice for the elderly, especially if you all are going to be walking around yelling into your cell phones for my personal enjoyment. Hell folks, you days are truly numbered, have that threesome you lusted after during the great depression, or whatever.

Is is the conversations of the stupids that I like the best. Stupid people are a little like the elderly, they seem to speak louder into the phone. In fact, a recent government funded study found that the louder people speak into a cell phone, the stupider they are. It's true, check it.

What I really find appealing about stupid people speaking loudly in public is that they are so willing to share almost every detail of their lives. Just yesterday, at the grocery store, I learned that one rather large woman was dating a man with erectile dysfunction. At least I think that's what she meant while loudly complaining of a wet noodle. A teenage girl laughed at something and said, "well fuck him". Classy. Finally, the sales clerk checking my groceries was also conversing with someone via his blackberry and mentioned how tonight he was gonna score a dime.

I may be an elder statesman, but jesus, I am not an idiot.

Sarah Palin - "fucking retarded"

My favorite internet crazy bitch, and the competition is intense, farted out this little bit of knowledge:

"I would ask the president to show decency in this process by eliminating one member of that inner circle, Mr. Rahm Emanuel, and not allow Rahm's continued indecent tactics to cloud efforts. Yes, Rahm is known for his caustic, crude references about those with whom he disagrees, but his recent tirade against participants in a strategy session was such a strong slap in many American faces that our president is doing himself a disservice by seeming to condone Rahm's recent sick and offensive tactic.
The Obama Administration's Chief of Staff scolded participants, calling them, "F---ing retarded," according to several participants, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Just as we'd be appalled if any public figure of Rahm's stature ever used the "N-word" or other such inappropriate language, Rahm's slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities - and the people who love them - is unacceptable, and it's heartbreaking."

No, what is heartbreaking is that anyone, even me, thinks anything that falls out of your empty head is worthy of reflection.

Snook