Into The Fray - Part 1

I wasn't planning on going. I woke up yesterday and was having my coffee when I turned on the TV. The World Trade Center memorial was already underway and they were reading the names of the dead aloud. I decided to check out the cnn.com video from September 11, 2001 to see what it was like to watch it from the perspective of five years later. But more on that later.

I decided to go down there.

Now just about everyone who knows me knows that I'm not patriotic. I make no apologies for it, nor do I see it as a personality flaw or a bad thing. Patriotism leads to nationalism which leads to jingoism. Which leads to needless violence in the name of something that is just a bunch of imaginary lines on a map. I'm a Humanist, because I think that is so much better for the world than patriotism. And there are no pledges or bad theme songs that you're forced to stand up for at baseball games.

So god and country were certainly not my reasons for heading down there. But I was drawn for some reason. I figured I might find some inspiration for something to write about. Because, you know, there is such a shortage of articles, blogs and commentaries being written about the anniversary of the attacks that someone needs to fill the void. So I grabbed the camera and headed to the subway.

Being a New Yorker now for less than two months this obviously isn't "my" anniversary. I was in Chicago at the time. Hell, I woke up that morning after the towers were already gone and only found out something was going on when I headed out to the White Hen Pantry for coffee and saw bumper to bumper mid-morning traffic because they were evacuating the Loop. None of my friends in New York were killed or hurt. So the events of 9/11/01 don't really belong to me in that way. And I hate people that act like it's "theirs" when it's not. Mostly it's the flag waving, Bush supporting conservative types. Shit, there are so many of these people who act like it happened to them and they don't even know anyone in New York. So I was going to just look around and soak in the experience, and try not to get too annoyed by these people. And hopefully get some pictures of people I could make fun of in my blog.

Truth be told, I was hoping to see this god-awful truck that I've heard about, painted with the twin towers and the Statue of Liberty, a cop hugging kids, the names of people, lots of American flags and the words "Have you forgotten..." (sans question mark for some reason). Oh my god, yes! I've totally forgotten about that day because there is just no one in the media or the current administration who ever brings it up.

Guys like that are exactly what I'm talking about. So I was hoping to get a look at that dumb hick, as I read somewhere that he was driving to New York to be here for the anniversary. Alas, I didn't see him anywhere. Probably because he couldn't find New York, it being above the Mason-Dixon and all.

But there was another truck:




My buddy Joe wrote about it a couple of anniversaries ago, but seeing it for yourself is a sight. It looks like a monster truck got crapped on by both an American flag and a Thomas Kinkade painting. And there lots of people getting their picture taken with it, along with a few of us that were taking pictures of it out of irony and to make fun of it on the internet.

This is just another one of those people trying to make this event theirs, even though it really didn't effect them at all. And he wants everyone to know who he is. He actually has his name on both doors of the truck. It actually says "Owner:" and his name. My favorite part is that along the bottom of the truck it says "America, like Ford...Built Tough." Man, this guy loves America so much he compares it to his beloved fossil fuel burning redneckmobile. America combined with advertising slogans. Who wouldn't get choked up by that?

What I find really annoying about these people is how they act like they have some sort of love for New York. The fact of the matter is that guys like Mr. Ford Tough, before 2001, hated New York and probably had never been here before the World Trade Center became Ground Zero and the excuse for Bush to strip us of our civil liberties. They hate everything New York stands for, from immigration to liberal politics to cultural diversity to gay people to multilingual neighborhoods. To them, New York has always represented the worst things about America. But now it is their prop to use as their excuse for their militant nationalism and "with us or against us" nonsense. If it had been a Timothy McVeigh instead of brown people that attacked New York no way would they be rallying around the city like this.

It's a disgrace and a shame for New Yorkers to have to put up with that and the hypocrisy of Republicans' choice to use the city as the backdrop to their convention. A city that some of them used to compare to Sodom and Gomorrah.

When I got down there the memorial part of the event (with the families down in the actual pit, closed to everyone else) was close to ending and I walked around the area, doing a full circle around the entire site and ending back at the PATH station plaza with a photo exhibit and that stupid truck parked close by.

There was also a row of tables set up being run by what appeared to be two groups, NYPD Officers for Jesus and Firefighters for Jesus, handing out pamphlets. That's where I saw this guy:



I just found this shirt funny. I really wanted to walk up to him and tell him that if he really was committed to that statement he would be dousing himself with gasoline and lighting a match. I just couldn't help but laugh out loud and take the picture.

I wish these people would figure out that religious fanaticism is the cause of, not the solution to, world conflict. It should be fucking obvious, but, true to religious fanatic thinking, it's always the other religions' fanatics that cause the problems, not theirs.

The other major presence there yesterday, and I mean major, was the 9/11 conspiracy theorists.



And this guy.



More on them tomorrow.

A Perfect Example Of Sportsmanlike Conduct

When I was younger I played league baseball for a total of one season. I was really bad at it. I got put in right field, where they always put the shitty players, and I didn't get a base hit all season. I just never really had the fundamentals taught to me very well. So what was my coach's reaction to this? Was it to give me good instruction, also known as coaching, on keeping my eye on the ball, a good stance, how to hold the ball, the mechanics of my swing?

No, it was to berate me in front of my teammates. In practice one day when I came up to take my swings the coach suddenly screamed out, "Everybody can sit down, Mayer's up to bat!" What is it with jock-strap coach types always using last names? Is it supposed to give them some sort of feeling of power?

Anyway, he wasn't joking. The big fat ass, ex-minor leaguer who never made "the show," with a big "chaw" in his cheek actually made the entire team sit down before he would let the pitcher throw to me. He said nobody should bother trying to field since I wasn't going to hit it anyway. So I stood in the batter's box, looking out at an entire field of my teammates sitting on the infield dirt and outfield grass as I tried to hit a ball that everyone was just told I had no chance to hit.

I was eight years old.

Why do I bring this up? I always think of it whenever there is a crazy coach or sports parent in the news. I'm sure most of you have seen the youth football coach in the news who clocked some kid on the opposing team. A thirteen year old kid. A blindsided full-on body slam. The kid's crime? A late hit on the Mr. Testosterone's son. Thankfully, and surprisingly to me, the ass hole was arrested. They say he faces up to a few years in jail, but I don't buy that as a possibility at all. What will happen is he'll be given probation and community service and barred from coaching any youth sports ever again. In other words a slap on the wrist for a 36 year old man who attacked a child. That's the way it works in America. Get caught smoking a joint and they'll throw the book at you, get caught on tape attacking a kid and you get a firm "tsk, tsk." Oh people are outraged right now, to be sure. But this will blow over and the guy won't get any real form of punishment once he finally gets his day in court.

There are those that are already trying to paint his as an aberration. Well it's not. This is just one visible symptom of the cancer that is youth sports. Kids who play in these sports leagues grow up to jackasses who think it's OK to beat up children and solve your problems with violence. Or even worse, they become John Rocker. And don't even get me started on the pathetic parents who are living their failed dreams and ambitions through their kids. That guy who ran out to tackle the kid is a prime example of one of them. My old little league coach was an even bigger one.

And what do I think should be done to him? Ten years in Attica ought to send a message to these other failed jock fathers that this shit won't be tolerated. If you think that's a harsh sentence, let me remind you he violently attacked a child. Act like a violent criminal and you get treated like one.

And he can share his cell with Coach Scarborough from the Central Dekalb (GA) Sally League Cardinals. Ass hole.

Courage In The Line Of Water

One of the great joys of having moved to New York is how much there is to do in the summer, including free stuff. Which, after all the moving expenses, is especially nice to have right now.

And probably the creme de la creme, the Cadillac, the Paris, the prom queen of free New York entertainment is the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park. An institution in New York, started by Joseph Papp 50 years ago, I've always wanted to see a production at Shakespeare in the Park. Well now that I live here I was going to finally get my chance.

We moved here right after Macbeth (starring the amazing Liev Schreiber) had finished its run, but the other show this season was Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children with a new translation by Tony Kushner, and starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton. So we jumped at that.

My buddy Joe and I went last Friday to wait in line for tickets for us and our wives. See, this is how it works: they give out tickets at 1:00pm on the day of the show, two tickets per person, first come-first serve. People start lining up outside the Delecorte Theater in Central Park at an ungodly hour of the morning. We got there about 7:45am and the line was really long already. So we sat on the ground, with the woman next to us nice enough to share her blanket, and began our 5+ hour wait for tickets.

After a while, of course, it started raining. Not heavy, at least at first. It rained about three times during our time in line and I forgot my umbrella. At one point it came down kind of heavy. And sitting on the ground is something you couldn't do at that point so the rest of the time in line was standing. And rain makes it impossible to read or play cards. But hey, we were getting free tickets to see Meryl Streep on stage, so no biggie.

You can probably see where this is going. We didn't get tickets.

We came seven people short of getting them. Seven. Over five hours of waiting in the rain and nothing to show for it.

Well, not nothing. It was five hours of hanging out with one of my best friends and favorite people having great conversations. Conversations that included my glowing defense of my view that people who like Larry the Cable Guy, the Marmaduke comic, and Thomas Kinkade paintings are not just people who have different tastes than me, but rather brain-dead zombies who are a waste of the earth's precious oxygen. I think I won that little debate.

We blew off some energy after the annoyance of not getting tickets by playing some frisbee. Funny how the rain cleared after we didn't have to sit outside anymore.

It looked like we wouldn't be seeing the show at all, but thanks to a change in my schedule we got to try again on Tuesday. We got there at 6:30 this time and were a lot farther up in line. In fact, this time we over compensated and could have shown up several hours later and still would have been fine. This time we were prepare with blankets, trash bags to wrap them in, and umbrellas. And boy did it rain that morning. Harder and longer than the first time. So even with the extra precautions we got pretty damn wet. Six and a half hours this time. But dammit, we got the tickets.

The show was still in danger of getting canceled because the forecast did not look good for Tuesday night. But we went. And it rained. Most of the night. But it was light enough for the show to go on, so we sat and watched in the rain.

It sounds bad I know, but it was actually the opposite. Man, what a show. Watching Meryl Streep just electrify the stage all night long made the dampness completely irrelevant. Words can't begin to describe watching Streep inhabit the character of Mother Courage. And Austin Pendleton is nothing short of a comic genius. A brilliant show filled with top-notch performances.

Something Joe said to me during intermission was right on. We were talking about how lucky we were to be able to see her on stage, and he made a great analogy. Yeas from now when we tell people (be it grandchildren or some other young people we annoy with our old man stories) we saw Meryl Streep it will be a lot like those old guys who can say they got to see DiMaggio play. And really it's true. I really got the chance to see the greatest actor of the last century, perform one of the great roles right in front of my own eyes. Not on video, but right there. And for free to boot. It just cost 12 hours of waiting in line in the rain. I would have sat through a hail storm and a plague of locusts and it still would have been a good deal.

I am so glad we live here.

Oh, and something I found out after I got home. The light rain didn't keep Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Austin Pendleton and the rest of the great cast of artists from spilling their souls and guts on stage. But a few miles away the same rainfall was too much for the Yankees to play a children's game. So Meryl Streep spent about three full hours acting her ass of in the rain, which sometimes included flopping around in mud, but Jeter, A-Rod and the rest of the baseball jocks on the Yankees wouldn't even play a little game that involves them sitting in a covered dugout half the time anyway.

Fucking pussies.

Stop-Immigration.org Is Just One Sad, Pathetic, Internet Troll Loser

Like my post title? I love that it will show up on the front page of the stop-immigration.org site when I post it, because of the way that site automatically links to blogs that mention the words "illegal" and "immigration." That's why I picked such a title.

But I've realized by reading the comments of the single person that comes over to my blog from that site that it's not just a joke, it's actually true. I've been checking my site meter and no one but this idiot has found my site by reading that moronic, jingoistic, racist site. So if he's the only one that reads it, he must be the guy who made it. I speak, of course, of the dipstick who's been leaving bizarrely reasoned arguments against all immigration the last couple of days. He calls himself "Patriot Rightly," which besides being stupid sounding (I've never understood the whole internet "handle" thing. Why is the internet like CB radios and rap names that way?) just doesn't really make any sense.

If you've read my last few postings you've probably seen the completely senseless comments he's written, along with some brilliant counter-points made by Armando, Jose and Ben. So I'm going to just touch on a few of the "points" good ol' P. Rightly made, not because they are valid in any way, shape or form, just that they are the same arguments the rest of the racist agenda crowd has been trained to repeat ad nauseum.

Of course the first argument against the racist charge was "I'm 50% Peruvian."

Well goody for you! This has become the new "I've got lots of friends who are..." Black or gay being the most popular of the words to finish that sentence. I find that most people who ever use that phrase to defend themselves against being called a bigot are usually talking about someone they work with or lives in their neighborhood. Which isn't exactly the same thing as "friends" now is it? Of course now it's the claim that "I can't be racist because I'm a minority." Especially if they are the same minority as the one you are accusing them of being biased against. Well I've got news for you Mr. Rightwingly, you can be half Hispanic and still have a hatred for your own kind. In the gay world it's called "internalized homophobia" and in the black world it's called being Clarence Thomas. So don't even try to pull that crap on us.

Of course this is one of the new tools for the racist agenda. Get a minority lackey to be the mouthpiece for your hate-filled ideals to deflect the charge of racism. Why do you think it was Michelle Malkin, an Asian American, they got to write that silly book defending the use of prison camps for Japanese Americans in WWII? She, like you, can state that because she's the particular race she's disparaging she is immune to the racist charge. Well I've got news for you Jingoist Righty, Malkin is one of the most disgusting racists in the country. She has even been going around promoting the idea that the Mexicans coming to America are largely a part of the conspiracy called "reconquista" that aims to take back the southwest U.S. for Mexico (she actually claims that's why most illegal immigrants are here) and call it Aztlan. Well, as I've pointed out to my old hick friend Kyle in the past (when trying to make him realize that Lou Dobbs is a racist ass) this whole conspiracy is not true. It was made up by white supremacists and neo-Nazis to strike fear in the moron masses. It's similar to the way the anti-Semites made up the Protocols of Zion to stoke the fears and hatred toward Jews.

I don't care how dark your skin is, if you aid in pushing the agenda of the white supremacists and neo-Nazis then you are a no good racist pig. Again, see the Clarence Thomas example.

I'm sorry you are a self-hating Hispanic (if that's really true anyway, this is the anonymous internet after all). It must be sad to look in the mirror and wish your skin would lighten so you could be like all the happy white people. Don't fret though, you've got company in Ms. Malkin and Michael Jackson.

And if you don't have a racist agenda yourself, then why are you peddling a racist book from a hate monger on the front page of your site? Look here and here for a run-down the racist drivel coming from Pat Buchanan's book State Of Emergency. Here's a few bits from it:

"This [immigration] is an invasion, the greatest invasion in history." [p. 5]

"We are witnessing how nations perish. We are entered upon the final act of our civilization. The last scene is the deconstruction of the nations. The penultimate scene, now well underway, is the invasion unresisted." [p. 6]

"Chicano chauvinists and Mexican agents have made clear their intent to take back through demography and culture what their ancestors lost through war." [p. 12]

"[W]e are in the midst of a savage culture war in which traditionalist values have been losing ground for two generations." [p. 28]

As for the "issues" caused by immigration, well as usual for the anti movement, if you can't find a real one make some up. The "environmental problem" being caused by immigrants is laughable at best. That these people pretend to care about the environment is sickening.

I'm sorry that "the woods and streams where (you) once played are now houses that all look the same" but the fact you try to lay that at the feet of immigrants is ridiculous. You think all those Mexican farm workers are buying those tract houses in your old playground? You know, a lot of the area where I use to ride my bike in the woods has been turned in to an office park, which sucks. But they didn't build that place just to accommodate the extra janitors they had available. You know what caused that? Your precious capitalism that you proclaim such love for.

And highways keep adding lanes because our elected officials don't have the political will to address the transportation issues facing this country in a real and reasonable way (public transportation) and instead pocket the money they get from the oil and auto industries and just build more roads. That ain't even close to being a migrant worker's fault.

The refusal of most of America's cities to control sprawl and implement policies to encourage and demand sustainable growth policies is the real problem. Why don't you join a pro-public transportation advocacy group, or a local environmental organization? Oh, you'd rather bitch about foreigners?

And they could stop putting lanes on those highways if Americans like yourself would bus, train, walk, and/or bike to work instead of jump in their SUV. I suppose I don't know for sure that you don't, but since your IP address says you live in Texas I'm guessing you don't spend a lot of time on the public transportation services in oil-land. By the way, a much higher percentage of immigrants take mass transit than native born Americans.

Population problem? You lay that at the immigrants coming in? What about the white couples from Iowa mainlining fertility drugs and popping out litters? They don't count in the population problem? Do a little research and you'll see that since 1960 alone the world population has more than doubled from 3 billion to over 6.5 billion. Population is a problem everywhere man, because people are having too many damn kids.

I'm not really sure what you mean by your city was 2 million growing up and is 5 million now, because there is only one city in America with that much population and that would be New York, with over 8 million. The second largest city is L.A. and it has less than 4 million and rounding out the top three is Chicago with about 2.8 million. So where the hell is this "city" with 5 million people? Your IP says you live in the Houston area, so we'll assume that you meant metropolitan area when you said city. But you should really learn to distinguish the two. But it's like I said, you live somewhere where the leaders you put in office won't do anything to address the growth and sprawl issues and are controlled by the oil cartel. It's rich white guys adding more lanes to those highways, not Mexicans.

Besides, if you kick out all the immigrants, it would only be fair that all the other countries kick out the American ex-patriots so we would gain back about 8 million people (counting overseas military) anyway.

Now these issues that are being used now by the anti crowd (environment, population) are real, but the blame for them is not. It's really about wanting someone else to make the sacrifices to make their world better. It's a total smokescreen. Stopping immigration won't solve any of the problems these people claim to care about. And the real solutions to these problems are usually opposed by these same free-marketeers and libertarians. Bring up that we should outlaw all cars that get less than 50 mpg, institute congestion fees for driving into an urban area (like they've done in London with fabulous success), or actually make people drive slower than 60 mph and they cry communism. Oh no, you can't make any testosterone toys or behavior illegal.

But declaring a human being illegal, for no other reason than trying to make a better world for their family, is OK. It makes me sick.

One last thing. Your comment, "World hunger is not my problem. My pantry is full" (after calling my friend a one world communist, which just made everyone snicker at you) says pretty much everything anyone needs to know about you. And I really don't have any more poetic of a response to it than this:

Go fuck yourself.

Some of us see the world in larger terms than what goes on inside our tiny little isolationist world and our own families.

So go back to your bunker and let the rest of us work together to solve these problems.

Diversions Of Politics

They pit the lifers against the new boy and the young against the old. The black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place.
---Yaphet Kotto, as Smokey James in the movie Blue Collar

I want to just write a little bit today to expand on yesterday's post. First off, the first anonymous comment was from someone who came to my blog from a site called stop-immigration.org, which is an organization that promotes ending all immigration to America, legal and illegal. A little searching around that site and you find little tidbits comparing Mexicans coming across the border to the Nazi invasion of Poland. I don't think I need to point out to anybody why that's just insane. What's weird is how fast this guy posted a message on my blog. A little looking around that right-wing, jingoistic, hate and fear-mongering site and I found that they have an "immigration blog" section that puts up links to any recent blog posts that have the words "illegal" and "immigration" in them. So that's how some nut ball responded to my post so quickly.

Oh, and the link to the study "proving" the horrible effect that immigrants are having on Social Security is from one of those anti-immigrant organizations that sells itself as a "non-partisan" think tank. Typical of the way conservatives run studies, they pick the answer they are looking for and then craft a study that will lead to that predetermined answer. Not what you would consider good science. It's similar to the way they claim that there isn't global warming by pointing to a study done by the one scientist, funded by an oil company, that disagrees with the other gazillion studies and scientists that say otherwise. Or those nefarious studies that claim to "prove" that gay marriage is bad for children, when in fact real studied have proven the exact opposite. They had similar studies that "proved" interracial marriage was bad for kids too.

Anyway, that's not the point today.

I've written about this before (here and here), and I have yet to see anyone make a reasonable argument to me that this whole anti-immigration movement is not based in racism.

And I know that's a loaded term. Calling someone a racist is a very serious charge. It used to be a term that got thrown around too much, so now we are scared as a culture to use it at all. But as the old saying goes, if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck blah blah blah. You know what I mean. And because I call them racists, they claim I'm inflaming the issue. But you want to talk about inflaming the issue? How about trying to link Hispanics crossing the Mexican border to terrorism (or "terror" as the low IQ set likes to call it) or calling it an invasion?

How many times do they need it pointed out to them that that's not how terrorists get into the country, running across the southern border? And they know it, but since the attacks on the World Trade Center they found an issue they could use to scare people into being fervently anti-immigrant. Well, most of these people already were anti-Hispanic immigrant, now they've been armed with a justification beyond that they don't like how "those people" pack too many people into an apartment or park their crappy cars on their lawn.

And that's how this movement has gotten such a footing. It s a movement that drapes itself in populism and solidarity with the working class, while playing on ignorant poor people's bigoted tendencies. Human beings tend to want to blame someone else for their lot in life, and there's usually a politician or greedy business owner willing to offer up a sacrificial lamb for their own aims. It's how they keep the masses in line, give them a boogie man to focus on and distract them from the fact it is the said politician and business owner that is the real cause of their oppression.

A century and a half ago it was often the Irish blamed for the country's problems. In my lifetime we saw the disgusting way Ronald Reagan demonized the so-called Cadillac driving welfare mother who keeps having children so her checks get bigger. In one swoop Reagan put the idea in all Americans' heads that the reason their lives were so hard was because all the black women in the country were on welfare and driving big luxury cars on your dime and were getting rich by having more kids. Never mind that none of it was true, not even close.

But the die was cast. Reagan made sure the minimum wage was never raised during his presidency, gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy, busted unions the best he could, handed out corporate welfare like Halloween candy and created a record (until recently) national debt that hurt our economy for a generation. But he had people believing that it was the poor women on welfare that were the reason they couldn't pay their bills.

And he had his help from the media. Some because they were just stupid, bad reporters, and some because they were just plain evil, like Lou Dobbs. And it continues today. Dobbs whole life is about demonizing Hispanics and propping up racist groups that claim, and this is just one example, Mexicans are trying to take over the American southwest by invasion and will call it Aztlan. And immigrants have become the scapegoats for the problems with our health care system, our public schools, reason we won't have Social Security when we retire and why the minimum wage is so low. And just like the fictitious mother with the Cadillac, people believe that illegal immigrants are coming here and going on welfare and sitting around and lazily collecting free money.

And of course, just like that stupid white guy you know who can barely tie his own shoes who claims the reason he didn't get that great job is because of affirmative action, it is not true. Our health care system, public schools and Social Security are messed up because of our elected officials and corporate greed, not because of a few Mexicans living on the fringes of society. And the minimum wage is low because the Republicans have controlled Congress for the last twelve years and they would rather cut the capital gains and estate taxes for rich people than give poor people an extra nickel an hour.

The diversion of "immigrant are the cause of your problems" is just another way they keep the poor people fighting each other so that they are blind to the real reasons they can't get ahead.

The saddest part is that it works so well.

Bum On The Rod

author unknown

The bum on the rod is hunted down
As the enemy of mankind;
The other is driven around to his club
And feted, wined and dined.
And they who curse the bum on the rods
As the essence of all that is bad

Will greet the other with a winning smile
And extend him the hand so glad.
The bum on the rods is a social flea
Who gets an occasional bite;
The bum on the plush is a social leech,
Blood-sucking day and night.

The bum on the rods is a load so light
That his weight we scarcely feel,
But it takes the labor of dozens of men
To furnish the other meal.

As long as you sanction the bum on the plush,
The other will always be there,
But rid yourself of the bum on the plush
And the other will disappear.

Then make an intelligent, organized kick,
Get rid of the weights that crush;
Don't worry about the bum on the rods,
Get rid of the bum on the plush.

Politics Of Diversion

If there were ever a question that this country is made up of the moron masses, just look at the immigration debate. When you wonder to yourself how people could actually believe things like Bush is a good president or that Republicans care about the middle and lower classes, just remember what stupid nonsense they'll buy into about illegal immigration, mostly thanks to the propaganda from the Republicans and Lou Dobbs. I got an email the other day from someone I went to high school with in Suburban Atlanta, who also went to my college in Illinois. She has since moved back to Georgia. Anyway, it was one of those pointless internet petitions she was forwarding to everyone in her email address book. This is what it said (I have not edited any of the following email transcripts, except for spelling and to not include the names on the petition, not to protect anyone, there are just too damn many):

It is already impossible to live on Social Security alone. If they give benefits to "illegal" aliens who have never contributed, where does that leave us that have paid into Social Security all our working lives?

As stated below, the Senate voted this week to allow "illegal" aliens access to Social Security benefits. Attached is an opportunity to sign a petition that requires citizenship for eligibility to that social service.

You can Agree or Delete. Instructions are below.

PETITION FOR: President Bush

Mr. President: The petition below is a protest against what the senate voted on recently which was to allow illegals to access our social security! We demand that you and all congressional representatives require citizenship for anyone to be eligible for social services in the United States.

We further demand that there not be any amnesty given to illegals, and NO free services or funding, or payments to or for illegal immigrants.

We are fed up with the lack of action about this matter and are tired of paying for services to illegals! Tell Senor Fox to pay for his own people!

Agree or Delete: Instructions to sign are at the bottom.

This was followed by a list of 323 names and their home towns with my "friend's" being the last one. Then continued:

If you don't forward the petition and just stop it, we will lose all these names. If you do not want to sign it, please just forward it to everyone you know. Thank you!!! To add your name, click on "forward".You will be able to add your name at the bottom of the list and then forward it to your friends.

THE 2,000TH PERSON SEND IT ON TO THE FOLLOWING E-MAIL ADDRESS: President@WhiteHouse.gov

You've all seen these before. I'm not sure what I think is funnier, that people think these things work, or that the person who wrote this one actually wrote that if you don't want to sign it at least send it to everyone you know. Yes, because I'm all about forwarding spam to all my friends with political agendas I don't agree with. The other thing that is always stupid about these things is the claim that if you don't forward it on all the names will be lost. If anyone actually took a second to think about that they would realize how stupid that is. Even if I don't pass it on, it's likely that someone on the list will, so the names won't be lost. In fact, what is more likely with these dumb things is that so many copies get flying around that most of the people who've "signed" it are on many, maybe hundreds or thousands, of them. This is why email petitions are stupid. Not only are there many of the same names getting sent to the target of the petition, but you can't even confirm that all the people on it are real. I could easily make up 2,000 names and places and send it out. Also, how do they decide on 2,000 as the number to then send it to the prez? My guess would be it was just pulled out of someone's ass.

So anyway, I sent an email back to Deb, and even though I was thinking about really going off on her, I just wrote this quick note to point out one correction to the claim that illegal aliens don't "contribute" to Social Security:

That's actually not true. Most working illegal aliens contribute to Social Security but don't get to take benefits later on. If they put in, they should be allowed to get the benefits of it.

You should learn the facts Deb, before you send out propaganda.

Now this is a little thing I like to point out to people. Most illegal workers actually get taxed because they use a SS# to get a job, but they don't actually draw on it when they get old, because they would get caught. So she emailed me back, and the true colors of the anti-immigrant agenda came flying out:

I have learned the facts and this isn't propaganda. Illegal aliens work by using forged or stolen document which is a felony in this country in which individuals usually go to jail, except if you're Hispanic. Let's not speak about that one social security number is used by several individuals at one time, so you think the government should figure out who worked where and pay the person appropriately. The fact is the government won't do that, instead the same amount would be paid out to all using the number, in which the funds for it would come out of another hard working American Citizen's account. And of course you're not putting a lot into social security right now, so it doesn't matter that someone else will get your money.

Let's not speak about all the other federal assistance the illegal aliens get that they don't contribute to, or really shouldn't get since their not American Citizens. OR the fact they are a driving force for why hard working American Citizens aren't able to get the minimum wage raised. The minimum wage needs to go up! The truth is American Citizens would work the jobs the Hispanic community does, but American Citizens aren't able to take care of their families by working those jobs. American Citizens choose not to break laws by living 10 to 20 individuals in a two bedroom apartment, or six families in a single dwelling home. And as long as industries know they could go get a day laborer off the street for nothing, their lobbyist will continue to grease palms to keep the minimum wage were it is now.

Of course if I lived in your reality, and had someone taking care of me, than I might believe your way that everyone should be taken care of at any cost. Man it be so great to have your blinders on, and not see how this country is being rapped by all the illegal aliens; as they negatively impact the health care, education, governmental and industrial systems.

As long as the individual is an illegal alien, that person does not have the rights that apply to American Citizens. They have the right to be treated in a humane manor, but not the right to break the laws of this country.

Well, now the gloves came off. Besides the fact that this was a racist-tinged rant against "Hispanics," she decided to claim that I feel the way I do about the issue because I'm lazy. I also assume she meant our country is being raped by Hispanics, not "rapped."

So I wrote her back:

Ahh, nice racist rant against Hispanics. The fact is, like I said, that undocumented workers put money into Social Security that they never get to take out. That completely goes against your claim that they have "never contributed." That's what I mean by false propaganda, which is what is being used to drive the racist-inspired anger against Hispanics.

It is the politics of diversion by our government, blaming the working poor for the country's problems instead of where the real problem lies, like in the boardroom of Wal-Mart and in the US Congress. It is your anti-immigration Republican buddies that are against raising the minimum wage, and illegal immigrants have nothing to with that, nor do they have any affect on it. They would prefer to cut the estate tax for lazy cunts like Paris Hilton rather than help the working class in this country.

And your claim as to American Citizens don't break the law by living too many people in a house is complete bullshit, I've seen that tons of times. Poor people, illegal or not, end up having to do that all the time. I've seen it a lot. You must never visit the trailer parks in your area.

It's obvious that your real problem is with Hispanics and how they live, regardless of their legal status. This is how the government and the big corporations keep us down, divide the poor masses against each other and stoke the flames of racism.

If you were really interested in doing something for workers rights you would involve yourself in protests against Wal-Mart and their union-busting, low-paying, no health-care business practices. But I'm willing to bet you give Wal-Mart your money all the time. Am I right? Feed the machine that keeps the people down, and blame the brown people for your problems. You could be out there helping to organize a union for Wal-Mart workers, instead you forward pointless petitions against Hispanics.

As for your dig and me and my wife, my so-called "Not putting a lot into social security," or that I have "someone taking care of me," well now, you don't really know dick about my life do you? You aren't the first, and you probably won't be the last, of my old friends who haven't seen me in like forever who make some assumptions about my life because I married someone with an MD behind their name. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but they're not true. I work both in the medical education field (for over five years now) and still have a fledgling theatre career for which I continue to get paid work. As someone who gets most of his money as an independent contractor/self-employed person I actually pay a higher rate to both federal taxes and Social Security since I don't have an employer contributing half like most people do. I'm willing to bet that I've lived in the blue-collar, working class, low-wage world a hell of a lot more than you ever have, especially during the entire 90s when I was in my twenties. So if one of us is likely to have your so-called "blinders" on it isn't me.

Calling someone lazy because they have a different opinion about the illegal immigrant situation than you is just a tired old tactic by you racist hate-mongers form the right. I'm used to it, people call me lazy all the time because I happen to be somewhat poor. It's completely untrue, but I decided a long time ago I didn't care what stupid hicks thought of me.

But you basically called my wife a sucker and accused her of being an enabler of some lazy bum, and that is something I will take offense to. You don't know my wife one bit (if you did, you would know that supporting a lazy do-nothing husband is not something she would ever put up with) and know nothing about our life together, or how much money she makes (which is a lot less than some people want to think), so I'll thank you to leave her out of any argument you might have with me.

It's sad and pathetic the way you feel the need to blame the Mexicans for the world's problems. The old white men in the boardrooms who control this country and its economy count on ignorant fools like you, with your easily exploited racist leanings, to keep their control and keep the working class from getting ahead.

I had originally written that if she insulted my wife again I would catch the next bus to Georgia and beat the snot out of her, but I thought better of that comment and deleted it. But I certainly felt that way, insulting someone's spouse is so low. And like most people, I won't stand for that shit.

I figure that's enough to digest for today. I'll have more comments about this "dialogue" tomorrow. Maybe I'll hear from her again in the meantime. Won't that be fun?

Immaterial Girl

I saw this little news item the other day. Seems that the Dusseldorf, Germany authorities are going to be keeping their eye on Madonna this weekend to make sure she doesn't offend anyone. If you haven't heard, Madonna is pissing off people with her mock crucifixion during a part of her show on the current tour. The Catholics in Italy are not happy and the Germans are giving her the stern warning that if she does it there it could be "construed as insulting religious beliefs."

Geez, who cares? I still don't understand at all what is wrong with insulting people's religious beliefs. It is no different than insulting people's political beliefs, and nobody seems to have a problem with that. Hell, turn on FOX News or any talk radio and you'll see my political beliefs insulted about once every ten seconds. I don't see the difference, beliefs are beliefs. And actually, most people don't actually have a problem with religion in general being insulted, they have a problem with their religion being insulted. Nobody makes fun of other people's religion better than religious people.

Remember the comet people from several years ago? The ones who committed suicide together because they believed that an approaching comet was going to pick them up and take them to heaven? Well, nobody stopped themselves from making fun of that. Of course, with them all dead I guess there's no danger bashing them. Everyone I heard calling them foolish and misguided for such silly beliefs was usually a Christian. Right, believing in a magic comet is so less believable than a guy born to a virgin mother (with God's seed) dying on a cross and then coming back to life three days later. Or that the same guy turned water in to wine. Or some guy took two of every animal on the entire planet and fit them on one boat, and then sailed for forty days.

Talking bushes, parting whole seas, walking on water, images of Mary in grilled-cheese sandwiches. And the comet people were the crazy?

And I know what you are thinking, "But Deni, you make fun of religion all the time."

True, but I don't believe in any of that nonsense. I make fun of all of them. I don't defend one while making fun of another or get all offended when mine gets insulted. Making fun of, or insulting, religion is fair game.

And really, don't these idiots realize that this is exactly what Madonna wants to happen? She's pushing fifty and nobody really pays attention to her anymore. Controversial shit is how she gets noticed. And apparently it doesn't even have to be very original. All that's happening is a rehashing of her shtick from 1989. Yawn.

Have the anti-free speech nut jobs learned nothing? Ice-T and his band Body Count sold so many more copies of "Cop Killer" because of the attention they brought it. And one of the worst rap groups of all time became huge because some right-wing Puritan ass-hole in Florida was offended by "Me So Horny." As soon as he tried to get it banned it went to the top of the charts. Then we all had to endure that fucking awful "Banned in the USA" song.

So all they are doing is making Madonna feel important again, when she really hasn't mattered for a long time. Just ignore her and she'll go away.

All this fuss over Madonna, who is about as relevant as.......well.......an unemployed guy in his mid-thirties with an opinion and a blog.

The Worldwide Leader In Dumb

I really should stop watching TV news. I can't stop though, I'm a news junkie. But it is so easy to get pissed at these people. The real problem today is not the so-called "liberal bias," which is not even close to being true anyway. No, it is the dumbing down, not just of the news, but of the people hired to read the news.

Now I've gone off on the idiot weatherman Chad Myers before, and he keeps proving his stupidity. For some reason CNN keeps rewarding his idiocy by giving him more responsibility, and a shiny new desk and studio. They had Mr. Hair Gel pull up the radar showing the planes in the air during the whole British situation last week. He was pointing out that there were not very many planes coming to the U.S. from England on that day because most had been canceled. He pointed out the few that there were, although I'm still not sure why other than he likes showing off the neato new computer CNN bought him, going from over the States first and moving east toward the UK. On the last one he pointed out he said, "...this one that just departed and is now over Scotland" while pointing to Ireland.

Fuck he's a moron. And nobody corrected the guy. Shit like that is just so damn annoying. People bitch and moan all the time that high school kids today can't pick out countries on the map or label all the states or some other thing that they should know. But shit, this is a lot worse. First, he's a weatherman, his whole life is about maps. How could he not know the difference between Ireland and Scotland? Second, he's in the media, he is responsible for information. And come on, can't they at least talk in his ear and tell him to correct himself when he does stupid shit like that? I'm guessing that nobody else even noticed, which means the producers of the news are no smarter than the pretty-boys hired to read it.

I just wonder where all the smart people in the media are, because it seems to me that used to be a requirement to get the job. But not any more. Instead, we get mind-numbing stupidity of the likes of Soledad O'Brien, Carol Costello, and Carol Lin, a trio of women whose role in the world should be spritzing you with perfume at the make-up counter in Macy's. Instead, they report on the important issues of the day. Well, sometimes. If there's time between the reports on Tom Cruise's new baby.

Though as annoying as those three are, they pale in comparison to the air-headedness of Betty Nguyen. How this giggly bimbo ever got a job other than hosting Tupperware parties or selling Amway I will never understand.

And don't even get me started on Miles O'Brien. Who did he have to fuck to get his career?

CNN has spent a lot of money recently on big new sets with fancy (and really annoying) video screens. You'd think they could spare 20 bucks for a goddamn world atlas for Chad Myers.

Or hey, what about hiring people with half a brain? There's a novel idea.

GOP Joe

A friend sent me this article today from the Wall Street Journal. A subscription is required to read the whole thing, it is basically one of Joe Lieberman's political buddies, Lanny Davis, accusing the opponents of Lieberman of conducting "liberal McCarthyism," acting like a left version of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter & Michael Savage and, most seriously, anti-Semitism.

He defends Lieberman with the line, "...Sen. Lieberman's record as a progressive (emphasis mine)Democrat and his opposition to President Bush not only on most domestic issues but also on the conduct of the war cannot be disputed..."

I wasn't going to really weigh in on the Lieberman primary race because, let's face it, it has been talked about and blogged about to death. But I couldn't help writing about this jerk-off's editorial. Both for the ridiculous anti-Semite charge and the reference to Lieberman as a "progressive."

So here's my comments on his editorial:

Exactly which "progressive" democratic record of Lieberman's is he talking about? Would it be sponsoring bills to protect Dow and Dupont from being sued over defective medical (mainly breasts) implants? Would it be pushing for similar laws to protect tobacco companies, HMOs and pharmaceutical companies from all lawsuits? No politician in Washington gets as much money from the insurance industry as Lieberman. And he's married to a drug company lobbyist.

What about the time he supported a bill that would deny funds to schools that counseled suicidal homosexual teens with the idea that there is nothing wrong with being gay? Is that considered "progressive?"

Would "progressive" be his attempts to force censorship on the music and film industries? Remember that he was also one of those politicians who tried to blame Marilyn Manson for Columbine.

Was his support for the idiotic Clinton impeachment "progressive?"

Oh wait, maybe he was talking about Joe's support of school vouchers (which would destroy public schools) or his anti-affirmative action stance.

Or maybe he's talking about the "progressive" idea of death penalty for minors, which Lieberman supports.

This article by one of Lieberman's political hacks is utter bullshit. He pulls a few quotes off the Internet and concludes that the anger against Joe is somehow based in anti-Semitism. By the way, all of his quotes that he purports to be "what the liberal blogs are saying" do not come from those actual blog postings but from the comments section that anyone can put something on. These are not "bloggers," they are just some blog readers who took a minute to hit the "comment" button and leave a remark, and they could be anyone from members of the GOP to the KKK to Lieberman's own staffers planting stuff. And to take Ned Lamont to task for not "denouncing" these statements is like condemning him for not denouncing a letter to the editor in the Jackson Hole Wyoming newspaper. He likely has never even seen or heard about these comments.

So because a few random nut-balls say some stupid things about old Joe being a Jew, suddenly it's all anti-Semites and McCarthy-ites that are trying to bring him down. Well that's complete bullshit, through and through. There is real anti-Semitism in the world, and this ass-hole trivializes it by trying to claim that Lieberman is a victim of it. It is an insult to every victim of the Holocaust, and every synagogue and Jewish cemetery that has ever had to clean off swastikas painted on their property. Mr. Davis should be ashamed of himself.

Those of us on the left who hate Joe Lieberman don't hate him because he's a Jew. We hate him because he's a conservative jerk who is in the back pocket of the insurance companies and the chemical industry. He is a Republican in Democratic clothing, and any person who considers themselves liberal or progressive should be ashamed of themselves for supporting him. You might as well vote for Rick Santorum or Tom Delay.

As far as "hate and vitriol" coming from us? Well before he starts accusing others of spewing hatred like Ann Coulter, he should talk to his "longtime friend" Joe about how he once referred to his opponent's supporters as Jihadists.

For some better reading on the Lieberman/Lamont race go to this and this. And these are free, unlike the Wall Street Journal site.

Love Letter To Lynne From Lowell

So after my last post I got a snippy little comment from Lynne, who has a blog called Left In Lowell, because she's a lefty politically and lives in Lowell, MA. This is her comment to me:

If you dislike your former place of residence so much, get yourself off of Leftyblogs' MA feed, then, as you are no longer a MA resident.

Thanks.

Sorry for the tone but if you think so poorly of the city, then you must think poorly of the people you left behind. It's sorta insulting.

Well Lynne, it certainly wasn't meant to be sorta insulting, it was meant to be really insulting. I must be off my game. What I don't get is that Lynne has read my blog a bunch of times and commented on several occasions, and has always posted a nice comment agreeing with what I wrote. So how is it that she has never been insulted by my degrading of Beantown before this? I mean, this was one of my tamer tirades against Boston. There have been people suggest to me that my blog should be called "I hate Boston" because of how much I go off on that town, has Lynne really missed it all this time? Why would she be so mad about my last one but not this three part series (here, here, and here) or this, this, or this. In that last one I ended it by writing, "This is what happens when you have a town full of those Southie dunderheads. They may have made for cute little lovable characters in Good Will Hunting, but in real life they're just a bunch of fucking Neanderthal dumbshits." How do you not get upset over that but over a little random bit about how I'm so much happier living in New York over Boston?

And there I think I just answered my own question. Boston knows they are not nearly as cool as New York and they have a lot of inferiority about it. I think it is probably the root of all of Boston's problems. Shit Lynne, I once wrote a whole tirade about how New England liberals (which is what you consider yourself) are the biggest hypocrites in the world, and not a peep from you about it. But one off the cuff remark about how it is so nice that stuff in New York stays open later than in Boston and suddenly I'm an ass-hole. (And really, if you ask anyone who knows me, I've been an ass-hole for so very much longer)

And as for the line, "...if you think so poorly of the city, then you must think poorly of the people you left behind."

Well, duh. That has been my point the whole time. I think I've made the point over and over that the reason Boston sucks the big one so much is because of the people. It is a town full of awful human beings who are shitty to everyone. What makes it even more unbearable isn't just that they're shitty all the time, but that they are so fucking proud of it. People in Boston don't bump you on the sidewalk and almost knock you down because they aren't watching where they are going, they do it because they want to knock you down.

Finally, as far as the Leftyblog Mass. "feed" that I'm on, well I have no idea how I got on there to begin with and don't even know how to take myself off. (And I've been listed there for a long time, I've always been surprised that I never got a pissed off Bostonian comment before since I'm pretty damn ruthless in my hatred for that town.) Someone at some point saw my blog and put my link up on their without my knowledge. I never really called my blog a political blog to begin with. Yes, I'm a person with leftist political leanings and often write about that, but I've always considered it to be more than just a political blog. I only found out about my listing at Leftyblog after discovering that people were coming to me from that site. I'm not complaining, mind you. A link is a link, and if more people find my blog because of it, that's cool. I wouldn't care if there was a link from the American Nazi Party site or NAMBLA if it means more people are reading my rants. But if I'm listed on the Mass. Leftyblog site, that is neither my fucking problem nor responsibility. And it seems like a really dumb, petty, shallow thing to be concerned about.

As a Massachusetts resident, you should be much more concerned about the fact that the people around you can't pronounce the words idea (ideer), car (cah), or park (pahk) without sounding like a bunch of goddamn morons.

Whew!

It's over! At long last I no longer live in the horrible, horrible shithole known as "Beantown." I got to finally change my profile location to New York baby!

It's going to still be a few days more before I get back to regular posting, so hang in there a little longer my adoring fans. My life right now is about getting our apartment in order. Our MUCH BIGGER apartment that is. (Seriously, we are the only people I know who moved to New York and got a bigger place than where we moved from) My days right now are being spent unpacking, painting walls, taking thousands of boxes and crumpled newspaper to the basement for recycling, and spending hours upon hours in Home Depot, Container Store, Crate & Barrel, Room & Board, Pottery Barn and Ethan Allen. Surprisingly, no Bed Bath and Beyond yet.

I'll write more later this week about my love of being in New York and out of Boston, but here's just one example:

We've been putting in late nights working on the apartment, so often we're not getting dinner until after 8:00 or 9:00 on a lot of nights. Last night we went to order a pizza at the great John's Pizzeria (right around the corner from us!) and grab some groceries from the Food Emporium. At both places my wife wondered out loud if they would still be open (it was pushing 10:00). And I said, "Honey, this isn't Boston, this is a real city. Shit stays open late in real cities."

It is so great not to be in Puritan-land anymore.

I Won't Let The Door Hit Me In The Ass On The Way Out

Sorry I've been gone so long everyone, I've been touring Chicago meeting some of my adoring fans (seriously) and my favorite DJ from when I lived in Chicago and listened to WXRT constantly. Met him at a random party, very cool guy. But that's a story for another day, this is not a real post. This is just a quick note to say that I'm about to box up the computer for the move. The next time you hear from me it will be from our new apartment in the great city of New York. I was going to change my location in my blog profile just because I'm so excited it won't say Boston anymore, but I'll wait until it's official.

Hang in a little longer everybody, I'll be back to my regular ranting soon. See you in the big city.

Free At Last! Free At Last!

It is finally here. My sentence of living in Boston for almost three years is effectively ending tomorrow. We're not moving quite yet, but my wife and I will be going to Chicago for the next couple of weeks and moving to New York right after we return. I've been waiting for this joyous day for so long. I'm giddy with excitement.

Since I will be out of town and staying at the mother-in-law's, where there is no computer, I will probably not be posting anything here for the next couple of weeks. Maybe I'll get a chance or two, but I doubt it. So I'll leave you now with just a few random thoughts I've had lately, some of them are just plain wrong (what else is new), and I'll hopefully be back in full swing once the move is finally over.
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So there was some roundtable thing in Washington last week with some of the cast members of "24" and Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security who apparently has nothing better to do with his time, and a few other conservative types, including Rush Limbaugh, sponsored by the Heritage Foundation. The topic? How the TV show is nothing like real life in the fight against terrorism. Just in case you didn't already know what an asinine and worthless organization the Heritage Foundation is, this is all the proof you need. Gee, you mean a TV drama about a fictional government anti-terrorism agency where about a gazillion things develop in one single day isn't anything like real life? Boy, they've got some on the ball genius Senior Fellows over there at that conservative think-tank. Good thing they were around to tell the people the difference between art and life. I always assumed that most conservatives were stupid, and apparently so does the Heritage Foundation. I do have something in common with them!

I could go on and on about the idiots over there, but I won't. What really stood out from this little dumbfest is that at some point, I think at the end, Rush Limbaugh planted a big sloppy kiss on the woman who plays Chloe on the show. There is speculation that they are dating. I don't know or really care if they are, it could be just that she is a big fan (barf), or that he just did it without warning and it was basically sexual harassment (seems likely). But if they are, here is the thing that I don't get. Her last boyfriend was the great talented genius comedian/actor David Cross. It is beyond the realm of imagination that someone could go from him to a fat, loudmouth, bloviating, sexist, racist fuckwad. David Cross and Rush aren't even in the same gene pool, how could they possibly be in the same dating pool? It boggles the mind.
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Newest thing to make me feel old: I got an email from the alumni association of my college. It was signed by the Director of Alumni Programs. She graduated four years after me, and she's like the head of the whole alumni thing. Geez, I don't even think I'm old enough to do alumni crap, and someone the same age as my younger sister is in charge of it. I need a cocktail.
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I just saw on-line that the kid who died on the ride at Disney World had a heart defect, just as my doctor wife predicted they would find. I think it's a cover-up myself. The ride in question involves really loud Aerosmith music. That has to be what really killed him. I know it would kill me to be strapped into a seat and forced to listen to that shit.
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And since she seems to have gotten herself into the news again recently, let me just reiterate my feelings about Star Jones. She is one of the biggest fucking wastes of oxygen this side of George W. Bush. And she's huge bigot who I hope someday gets beaten to death by a gay gang.

If you disagree and think she is someone who adds some value to the world, well, then you are a big fucking moron who needs to get a life.

Although one great thing to come out of the news about her the last couple of days is Keith Olberman showing a clip of her getting smacked in the face by a football over and over again. That shit is just funny.

Have a great couple of weeks everybody!

I'll be writing to you next from either Chicago or New York.

Well Excuuuuuuse Me!

I haven't posted anything this last week because my whole life has been about packing. Pack, buy boxes, pack more, buy more boxes, pack more again, buy more boxes, buy yet another roll of tape. I did get one of those awesome packing tape dispensers like I used to get to use back in my warehouse worker days after high school. I have very few man-toys, so it's good to add to the collection and show my wife that maybe I do have some testosterone. Oh, and bubble wrap. Rolls and rolls of bubble wrap. There's nothing like moving to make me feel nothing like the environmental-friendly person I like to think I usually am. Hundreds of feet of plastic just doesn't feel right.

But we are so close to getting out of this godforsaken shithole of a town that I can taste it. And unlike any other time in my life I have moved, I'm not getting one bit of nostalgia for anything I would miss when I leave. In fact, I've just been having moments of "Fuck, I'm so happy we're leaving soon."

Like going to Staples the other day to get a few more boxes and a huge roll of bubble wrap. I'm walking home with a 110 foot roll of wrap and a strapped together bundle of three boxes. Now these are not heavy of course, but they are extremely awkward. This is made even more so by the fact that it's really windy. So I'm trying to carry these things home while the wind is whipping them around as I walk. With flat boxes in windy weather you might as well be trying to carry a sail.

Now, usually when walking around Boston people are pretty much huge ass holes and don't make room for other people on the sidewalk. An example of this is when you are walking and there are two or more people coming from the other direction and they are spread across the whole sidewalk. In most places those people would move a little to make room for you to get by. Not in Boston. In fact, I've noticed that people sometimes even adjust the other way and purposely take up more space on the sidewalk, like a dog pissing on a post to claim the territory for themselves. Even people walking by themselves will do this. I can be walking and another person is coming from the other direction and I am to the far right side of the sidewalk and they will stay right in the middle and not even make an attempt to avoid bumping you.

"But surely this wouldn't happen when they see someone struggling to carry awkward bulky things down the sidewalk," I thought, "Even Bostonians can't be that big of ass holes."

Boy was I wrong. In my short ten minute walk home I was bumped no less than four times, twice what I would call pretty hard. And I was not walking on crowded sidewalks. Every single time I was as far over as I could get and the other person had plenty of room to get over to make enough space for me without putting themselves out in any way. But noooooooo, wouldn't want to give a fucking inch for a fellow human being would we?

Oh man, I need to get out of here. Basically just have one more week to get through. Then it's off to the nice friendly confines of Chicago for about two weeks, then back here to load the truck and we're off to New York.

And never look back.

Except maybe to flip the bird as we're leaving the city limits.

World Cup Fever

I get. I really finally get it.

Soccer that is. And for the rest of this blog I will refer to it by its more proper name of football (I would spell it futball but that's too overly pretentious even for me), because it is a lot more "foot" than our stupid American sport. When you think about it, American football should be called something like "passball" or "catchball" or "big-stupid-Neanderthal-fatass-ball."

My friend Joe wrote a good little piece about trying to watch the World Cup but just being bored by it. I can appreciate that notion about football, but I really disagree.

Back during the football Cup in 1998 my buddy Jose tried to get me to get into it. I admit I tried to watch the championship game between France and whoever, but ended up falling asleep in the middle of the match. Granted, this may have had something to do with the fact I was lying on my couch drinking beer and smoking "stuff" while trying to follow what the hell was going on.

So I didn't get it then. But a few years later, after I moved from Seattle to Chicago, my friend Amy took me to a football game at Soldier Field (before they re-did it to look like a toilet bowl) for the local team called the Fire. It was seeing it live that made me finally get into football. I don't know if it was the almost all-immigrant crowd singing that ole' ole' ole'-o song or what, but I just loved it. There is something both relaxing and exciting about football. There is a poetic flow to the whole thing that is just mesmerizing. I'm definitely a convert.

As for the whole "boring" charge, I just don't understand that. People in America say it's because of the low scoring and the ties (and I'll admit I still think of the Simpson's going to the game when I watch. Where Homer yells "boring" and Ken Brockman calling the game in the bored way as he says "holds it, holds it, holds it.."), but that's a crock.

First of all, the high scoring American sports are artificially that way. Regular football would be almost as high scoring as American football if they gave seven points for each goal too. And what the hell is with the field goal? That's exciting, watching a failed football (soccer) player kick a weird shaped ball through a couple of upright sticks? And what a pussy thing for a "manly" sport. "Awww, poor baby couldn't score the real way. Here, why don't you kick this though these poles and we'll give you...oh I don't know...three points. Just for getting kind of close."

Fuck that man. During the World Cup, if you don't score a goal...well then you don't fucking score. Nobody is there to make it easier for you.

And speaking of easier, how the hell does all the scoring in basketball make it more exciting? Doesn't seem to me that anybody has to work at it. Run down the court, dunk. Run to the other end, dunk. Repeat. About a hundred times. Yea, real fuckin' exciting.

You know why the scores are so low in football? Because it's fucking hard man! And I don't mean artificially hard like that stupid sport hockey. If you make the net that small and give the goalkeeper so much padding that he can cover the whole opening, then of course it's hard to get it through. Have you seen how big the net is in football? It's goddamn huge, and it still takes a lot of work to get it in.

Boring? I don't think so. Anybody who says it's boring didn't watch that amazing match between Germany and Poland the other day. A constant back and forth match with no goals scored after ninety minutes. In the last ten minutes the Polish goalkeeper repelled attack after attack in mind-blowing deflections and it appeared to be heading toward a tie. But then suddenly Germany got one through in extra time. It was a breathtaking 90 minutes.

And that's another thing, the clock seems to actually mean something in football. In American football a sixty minute game clock takes 3+ hours to click away. A ninety minute football game in the Cup takes less than two hours including halftime and adding on extra time for substitutions and injuries (but not because it's tied). The clock stops for nothing. I love that. And the constant action makes it a hell of a lot more exciting than American football's 30 seconds of playing followed by four minutes of players standing around with hand motions by refs and moving chains and bringing in the punting team and then calling a timeout and then reviewing a play on the TV, and then finally a commercial break.

No commercials during the matches may very well be the best thing about it.

And I know ties are one of the complaints as well. But I saw an over-matched Trinidad and Tobago team, in their first World Cup as well as the smallest country to ever make the tournament, play Sweden to a tie and you would have sworn they just won the whole thing, they were so ecstatic.

The excitement comes in the game itself, not just what the scoreboard says after it's over. I mean, if it's not fun to watch while it's happening, why would the final score matter anyway? An exciting tie game is a lot more fun to watch than a boring blowout with a winner at the end.

But I suppose that's not very American.

I've watched about half the matches so far this World Cup and I'm just loving it. I also see nothing but pure sportsmanship during the matches. Players get knocked down and the opposing guy helps him up with a smile and a pat on the head. Haven't seen a single fight yet. There has certainly been no equivalent of plunking a player in retaliation like there is in baseball. The crazy fans/hooligans may go at each other, but players during this tournament, from what I've seen, compete with class.

I still don't understand every little rule and nuance about the sport, but nothing beats the drama of the World Cup.

I should have listened to Jose years ago.

It is pure poetry in motion. I finally get it.

...And Rinse

I went to the dentist today. The last time I went was a year ago, which the dentist pointed out. She reminded me I should go every six months, but that she was happy to see I didn't go seven years between visits like last time. I certainly won't let that happen again since last time I had to get a procedure called scaling that involved them having to scrape my teeth under the gums, because of how heavy my plaque buildup was. Trust me, it's not something you want to have done if you can avoid it. It's nice to have health insurance now, so that doesn't happen anymore.

Since it had been a year since my last appointment I had to get x-rays as well as my cleaning. I realized something during the x-rays. It seems that when I get them done I hold my breath when they snap the shot. I'm not exactly sure what I think is going to happen, whether I'll get cancer or super powers (I would call myself Super Opinion Man if that did happen), but something about the fact that you have to wear a lead bib to get them done makes me think that I have to take every extra precaution.

So when the x-ray person puts the film in my mouth and steps behind the wall to shoot the picture, I hold my breath. I also sometimes wonder why they don't tell you to say "cheese."

Man, I'm a dork.

Fooey

I've always thought that the worst thing about Kurt Cobain's suicide in 1994, besides poor Francis Bean losing the wrong parent, was the creation of the crappy band the Foo Fighters. How someone that came out of such a great band that made incredible music could go on to create such pedestrian pop shit is beyond me. But Dave Grohl has made the transition with ease. But I have discovered recently that the Foo Fighters music, as shitty as it is, it's not even the worst thing about the band.

I was reading this incredible Op-Ed in the New York Times the other day, on the 25th anniversary of the first published report of the disease that we now know as AIDS. It was titled Deadly Quackery, and it was about the co-called AIDS denialists and their affect on the policies and attitude toward the disease of the idiot president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki. Read the article, it is really good. One person that is mentioned in the piece is a woman named Christine Maggiore, an HIV-positive Californian. This is what they say about her:

By courting the AIDS denialists, Mbeki has increased their stature in the United States. He lent credibility to Christine Maggiore, a Californian who campaigns against using antiretrovirals to prevent transmission of HIV from mothers to children, when he was photographed meeting her. Two years later, Maggiore gave birth to an HIV-infected daughter, Eliza Jane, who acquired an AIDS-related infection last year and died at age 3.

I had never heard of this person so I googled her. She runs an organization called Alive & Well and I spent some time looking around their web site. It is absolutely horrifying to read the kind of misinformation she promotes. These groups of AIDS denialists make absolutely outrageous claims that fly in the face of all proven medical science. HIV doesn't cause AIDS, AIDS is not a real disease but a renaming of a group of 29 different diseases that have been around for a long time, HIV isn't transmitted by sex, AIDS is caused by malnutrition and also that it is caused by the drugs created to treat it. There is a popular opinion among these people that the best treatment for AIDS is multivitamins, dietary changes, homeopathy, cleansing and even some dipshit thing called "imagery."

Even worse, this woman has promoted the idea that pregnant women should not take antiretroviral drugs to prevent passing the virus to their babies, ignoring the fact that since this has become the standard treatment for expectant mothers the rate of babies born with the virus to HIV-positive mothers has plummeted. As mentioned in the NYT article, she practiced what she preached and her daughter died of AIDS. She continues to deny that it was AIDS that killed her kid.

Anyway, to get back to my point why the Foo Fighters suck even more than we thought before, you can read about this crazy woman on your own, I discovered something during my little exploration of her site. Besides support from the leader of South Africa, it seems that she has big fans in the Foos. If you go to the community/causes section of their official website they have a link to the Alive & Well website, with the description ‚"Alive & Well is a non-profit grassroots education, support, and research organization founded by a group of HIV positive diagnosed men and women who have learned to live in health without AIDS drugs and without fear of illness."

Sounds real nice if you don't know the truth behind this "research" organization.

The sad part is that this is listed with a bunch of great social and political causes like Campus Progress, Future Forest and Runoff Voting. They have put this lunatic fringe group side by side with genuine progressive organizations and given them an image of legitimacy.

This crazy woman, Christine Maggiore, should be in jail for killing her kid by not providing medical treatment. Instead, she's getting her picture taken with the president of South Africa and hanging out with Gen-X indie-poppers who promote her insanity.

And that's why it's dangerous what they are doing. The Foos have a lot of fans who weren't around in the beginning of the AIDS era and don't know what a difference the development of these drugs has made. Some newly diagnosed, young, scared, impressionable music fan could be steered to this questionable organization and get bombarded with a load of legitimate sounding misinformation and decide to not seek out real treatment for HIV/AIDS because of the Foo Fighters' promotion of this whacko group. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Making shitty music is forgivable, maybe. Spreading deadly propaganda is abhorrent.

T-Shirt Liberals And New England Hypocrisy

I sent this to the Boston Globe last week as an Op-Ed submission. They didn't run it. Oh well. I sent it to the Boston Herald earlier today, but I'm not going to wait to see if they print it because I probably have a higher readership than they do anyway. Seriously, they give it away outside the train station because nobody will pay to read it. That's what happens when you are the uglier step-sister to the New York Post I guess.

Thanks to Joe for editing advice.
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T-Shirt Liberals. Bumper Sticker Liberals. Limousine Liberals. Checkbook Liberals. They go by many names, and they are everywhere, though not nearly as pervasive in other parts of the country as they are in New England. While living in other regions of the country I was confused by conservatives who derided the "New England liberal elite." I've always been a proud liberal and I couldn't understand how the charge of elitism applied to believing in protecting the environment, workers rights, racial and gender equality, and freedom of speech, among other things. It took me moving to Boston almost three years ago to understand not only why the charge of liberal elitism is so often made, but also so easy for people to believe.

One needs to look no farther than environmental issues for the evidence. The progressives in this region talk a good talk about energy conservation, alternative sources of energy, recycling and mass transportation. These are all great ideas to care about. But the problem with New England liberals is that they treat them all like they are abstract ideas and not an action you actually take to make a difference. Walking all over Boston I often see those pro-environment license plates that generate money for the Environmental Trust, slapped on to the back of 12 miles-per-gallon SUVs. This is a classic bumper sticker liberal move. Put a nice little message on your car that supports the environment, maybe even in the form of something that says you give a little money (in this case about $40 per year) to environmental organizations and then happily drive your fossil fuel-burning behemoth to the symphony guilt-free. Forgive me if I don't applaud their gift to Mother Nature. I think that walking and taking public transportation to get where you need to go does a lot more for the environment than someone slapping a pro-nature message on their car, even if it does send a few dollars to an environmental trust.

Just look at my neighborhood of Beacon Hill. It is a place where a lot of the rich, left-leaning residents had Kerry/Edwards signs in their windows and they are very proud of getting their picture taken for the society pages at events to raise money for environmental causes, among other things. Yet in a neighborhood that is the most perfectly located in the city for using your feet and the subway to get around, the hill is bursting at the seams with fossil-fuel burning vehicles, with a perversely high percentage of them being SUVs and other gas wasting luxury cars. And one only needs to walk around Beacon Hill on a Friday morning to see just how woefully low the number of residents who participate in the city's recycling program is.

Nothing has put the national spotlight on liberal elitism and New England hypocrisy like the Cape Wind project. A lot of otherwise liberal Cape Cod residents have come out fighting against the clean energy project. We're not talking about the usual suspects - conservative hacks backed by the oil and coal industry - but self-described liberals. Their argument usually begins with something like "We agree that we need alternative and renewable energy, but..." followed by a list of reasons as weak as George Bush's for attacking Iraq. It really comes down to a simple case of "not in my back yard."

Even the "liberal lion" Ted Kennedy has come out against the wind farm for no other reason than it might be visible from his family's compound in Hyannis. The senior senator from Massachusetts talks a good game about the need for conservation and renewable sources of energy, but gets around by SUV and private jets instead of public transportation, Amtrak or commercial flights. And even more disheartening, he makes backroom deals with an Alaskan wildlife oil-drilling advocate to get the Cape project killed. One can guess the price to be paid Sen. Stevens of Alaska for his help in protecting Sen. Kennedy's view. Robert Kennedy Jr., a prominent environmentalist, has also come out against Cape Wind, in complete contrast to the rest of the environmental community.

This is why the left is painted in such a bad light. We tell everyone to conserve and argue the need for better energy sources, then jump in our SUVs and fight against a clean energy project because it might be (barely) visible from our backyard. This is not leadership. Until we are willing to make those sacrifices ourselves - using public transportation even if it takes a little longer, recycling, promoting not just the idea of clean energy but also the reality - then we can't expect the rest of the world to take us seriously.

"Save the earth" should not just be catchy t-shirt slogan. All the bumper stickers in the world and big checks written to out to Greenpeace won't make a bit of difference if we just expect everyone else to bear the burden.

The Old Apartment - Part 2

So letting the broker show our apartment even though he didn't give enough notice turned out to be a good idea. The guy he showed it to (the one who said he had no intention of talking to the neighbors) told him that he wanted to take the place. As they left and I heard them talk about going back to the office to do the paperwork. Awesome, I thought, it was over and we wouldn't have to worry about having a parade of people coming through the place every day. The cockatiel isn't too fond of strangers (which still includes me really) so he would be happier this way too. The guy actually first stated out loud he wanted the place about three seconds after he stepped in the door (seriously, that's not an exaggeration). It probably has something to do with the fact that in our neighborhood, our roughly 400 square foot apartment is considered "big," something the broker even said while he was there. "This is one of the biggest apartments available on Beacon Hill," he said.

In case you needed any more evidence of how tight the Boston housing market is, this was it. Our apartment was on the market for less than a half of a day, about 7 hours.

I told the wife when she got home, after admitting that she was right and I was wrong about how soon brokers would start calling and that they would want to come over right away. Her annoyance with me for letting someone come to look at the apartment when it was, in her mind, messy was offset by her happiness that it was over and we didn't have to deal with it anymore.

The next morning my honey was still getting ready for work when the phone rang.

"Hi this is Marc from Red Brick Real Estate. I want to show your apartment today at 10:00."

I looked at the clock, it was 9:50.

I explained to him that it wasn't a good time and that we wanted 24 hours notice on any apartment showings. I figured the place would still be listed until the credit check and all that crap went through with the guy who wanted it, but I still wasn't going to let these brokers (did I mention before I think of brokers as scum sucking maggots?) push me around.

"24 hours notice?!?! John (our landlord) didn't tell me that," he replied.
"Ok," I said, "I don't know what it is about you New Englanders, I'm not from here, but where I come from (I think I made myself sick that this phrase actually left my mouth) people don't do this. Common courtesy says you can't expect to come over to my apartment in ten minutes."

He made some indignant grunting noises (I can't think of a good way to convey the sound, I spent the last twenty minutes trying to think of a way to spell them, with no luck), kind of like a child who isn't allowed to have a cookie.

He then said, "Then I want to show the place tomorrow at 10:00."
"That's no good." I said, "Nobody is going to be here tomorrow at that time. But I'll be here after 3:00."
"You mean you need to be there, too?"
"Yes."

I pretty much decided by this asshole's attitude that no way would I let him in my apartment without me there. I figure, act like a baby, get treated like a baby. I told him that the concern was the bird, who is not locked in a cage and is allowed free range of the apartment (hey, it's his place too).

He made some more of those grunting noises and then, "I'll call you back." Click.

He called back a few minutes later and said he wanted to show the place on Saturday (this was Thursday) at 10:00. This guy had a thing about 10:00 that I couldn't understand. I know that real estate brokers don't actually do any work for the obscene amount of money they make, but shit, he only works what, from 10:00 to 10:15?

I told him that was fine and then he said, "It probably won't matter because the place will probably be taken by then."
"That's probably true," I said, "the guy who looked at it yesterday said he was going to take the place."
"It's going to cost me a commission." (Presumably he meant my not letting him show the place in ten minutes was the cause)
"Well you know what? Your commission is not my problem."
"You see, the way it works on Beacon Hill is that people stop by the office and want to look at places and we just swing by and show them."
"Well how it 'works' on Beacon Hill is also not my problem. This is my apartment until the end of July and I make the rules. My rights, by law (more proof brokers are useless, they are supposed to be the ones that know rental law) are that you have to give me 24-48 hours notice if you want to show my place."

I wanted to add the words, "you stupid asshole" at the end of the last sentence but I kept it at a mature level. I'm sure that comes as a surprise to everyone.

The thing that bugs me about twats like this guy is that he depends on people not knowing their rights and he tries his best to bully them. Well fuck that, I don't let people walk on me. This attitude is probably even more pronounced since I got married. My wife was still drying her hair and in her underwear that morning. Now, people seeing my hot lady in her skivvies and seeing how lucky I am doesn't really bother me, but she's not really into that. So I wasn't going to let her get rushed or pressured in her own home. There is some sort of weird primal male thing that I always thought was bullshit, but there might actually be something to it. Whenever anyone does anything to fuck with my wife I want to take a baseball bat to their heads. And that's on top of the fact that I already hate dickheads like this guy.

Anyway, my landlord called the guy just a couple of hours later to tell him the place had been taken.

The prick never called back to thank me for saving him from wasting his time showing the place.

The Old Apartment - Part 1

The landlord left a message on Monday night last week. We were home when he called, but it was the same time as the 24 season finale and no way in hell was I going to answer the phone during those two hours. I called him back late the next day and he just wanted to ask what was up with us because our lease is ending in July and he couldn't remember why we had changed the ending date. Despite a degree from MIT and a fortune made in the antique business, he doesn't come across as the brightest bulb in the box sometimes. Anyway, I reminded him that yes, we were planning on moving out of the apartment and out of Boston (Woo-Hoo!) to relocate to New York (double Woo-Hoo!). He asked if he could go ahead and list the apartment with the brokers he uses and I said no problem. My wife differed with the "no problem" opinion. She was freaked because the place wasn't clean. First of all, it looked fine. Second of all, I still can't figure out why she would care what the place looks like to people who might be moving in after we are gone. I mean, people are coming to look at our apartment, we're not holding interviews for new friends. I guess it's a girl thing. She told me I should have told him to wait to list it so we would have more time to clean up and blah blah blah and she wasn't ready to have people start showing up to look at the place already. I told her not to worry about it so much. It wasn't even June yet, I told her, so no way would people be looking for August 1st already, and anyway they have to give us 24-hour notice to come show the place. She pretty much just gave me the old "you just wait and see" look.

Boy was I eating crow the next day. I got home form work at about 3:30 and there were three messages on the machine from different brokers (or as I like to call them, scum sucking leaches) wanting to come over and show the place. And every call, without exception, had them asking to show the place at a time that was about 10 or 15 minutes after their phone call. I was about to start calling them back to explain the 24-hour notice rule when another one called, "Hi this is (so and so) from Crescent Realty and I have a guy in my office and want to swing by to show him your apartment."

Holy shit I couldn't believe these damn people. I explained to him that I wouldn't be letting people show the place with any less than a 24-hour notice, and something completely unexpected of a Bostonian happened. He apologized. No trying to talk me into it or giving me a hard time, he just apologized and tried to figure out when he could show the place. I ended up telling him to go ahead and bring the guy over (the wife wasn't home to freak about how the place looked) since he had somebody there, but that from now on I would be sticking to my "guns," as it were. He turned out to be this really sweet old guy and when he showed up he apologized again and thanked me many times for letting him show the place and was all around really nice about it.

So the guy looking at the place is the real point of this story. I was telling him about the place - the crappy laundry machines, the loud neighbors, the water damage in the ceiling/wall over the fridge, but great water pressure and hardwood floors and decorative fireplaces - and he said the heartiest thing.

There is a single-level coach house connected to the back of our building and our back window (we're on the first floor) looks directly out onto their little patio, and it is a married couple that lives there. Anyway, I was kind of telling him a little bit about them since you can't help but see them a lot if you want to have your window open. I mentioned that the wife will talk to you but the husband comes across as really antisocial. This is what he said:

"That's OK, I don't plan on talking to the neighbors anyway."

That, in a nutshell, represents exactly why I hate living in Boston. This town is full of that attitude. No desire to know your neighbors. It's not even that people here are shy, which I secretly always hoped that's what it was really all about. It is actually a conscious decision to not be friendly. Man, I am so happy we're finally leaving.

Six weeks to go, six weeks to go....