Sunday, May 28, 2006

If You're Missing a Toe, Don't Wear Sandals

I’m no rocket scientist, but I’m very perceptive. This is a good quality, but it lends you to a life of observing the asinine tendencies in others, while existing in a constant conundrum of whether to let the chips fall where they may, or stating the obvious, which makes you look like a judgmental asshole. Since I’ve made a vow of trying to live my truth, let the asshole games begin.

My dwindling respect for CNN has hit its final low with a new analysis they plan on doing in honor of the birth of Brad and Angelina’s daughter. It’s called Hunting Angelina. Yeah, the title makes me sick, too. It’s supposed to be a show about the forces behind celebrity worship, and how the powers that be get regular people to care about “glamorous strangers.” I’ve never understood the whole celebrity worship thing, and since I was a scholar of media studies in my college years, I might actually make an effort to watch this. However, the fact that this show is made by the same producers who kept the play-by-play report of Brad and Angelina’s lives in our head on a daily basis via the running news ticker at the bottom of the CNN screen makes me skeptical regarding the analysis’ integrity.

Let’s put this Brad and Angelina situation in a different, non-celebrity light. Take a guy who is married, leaves on a business trip and has a fling, impregnates the business trip fling, and then returns back home to give his wife divorce papers. To make matters worse, he doesn’t even have the decency to marry his fling, he just shacks up with her. She’s no prize herself given her tendency for homewrecking. She also happens to be a single mother with two kids. They move in together quite quickly and she, somewhat irresponsibly, lets him bond with her kids while they wait for the birth of their child. When the baby is finally born, it’s born into a household where there is no guarantee if the parents will be together next month. Not too glamorous when you take away the whole “celebrity actor” thing, in fact, it seems like something you’d see on Jerry Springer.

We expect this extreme bullshit from the world of entertainment, but we should demand slightly more from the elected officials that big pharmaceutical lobbies purchase for millions of dollars. They passed, what’s been termed as, “sweeping immigration reform”. It’s the type of legislation that will help nothing and doesn’t have an ounce of practicality, but could be used in November to get either the incumbent or challenger elected, depending on the strength of the candidate’s spin doctor.

In this new legislation, they require everything federal to be in English, and essentially list English as the national language. Of course, they don’t bother to fund or expand English as a Second Language programs, and they are aiming this squarely at Hispanics forgetting that in my little neck of the world known as the Pacific Northwest, there are over 50 languages spoken in most of the local schools. The assholes in Washington D.C. are also requiring illegals who are now referred to as “guest workers” (cause it might be a little nicer) to pay about $2,000 in fines in order to receive citizenship. These are people who work for less than minimum wage, which, I believe, is at the heart of the original problem, so my guess is that they don’t have a spare two grand lying around.

Finally, since I’m on a roll in terms of stating the obvious, if you happen to have some sort of slightly peculiar deformity, please be courteous and try to cover it up if it’s a little icky. There is nothing more annoying than being forced to sit through a meeting, while having to stare at something slightly deformed. This happened to me last week. I was trying to participate in important conversations, brainstorming ideas about raising awareness and money for The Facility, but each time I looked across the square of six foot long tables all I saw was a pair of sandals and only half of a big toe on one of the feet. I’m not a big fan of feet in general, they are unattractive, and a little gross to look at, no matter how well groomed. Missing or partial digits doesn’t make them anymore attractive, and having to stare at one during a lunch meeting, of all things, is just a bit ooky. I don’t go out of the house and parade around in a string bikini, post pregnancy, and the person with a half of a big toe should at least consider a comfy pair of socks. I’m not trying to be a heartless bitch, because I know bad shit happens to good people, and sometimes they are left with scars that don’t heal, and that’s okay, but feet are another story. Maybe it’s just my own deal, and if so, feel free to ignore me on this.

That’s all for now, but I’m sure I’ll come across other interesting observations, until then, I’ll be in my room covering up my lightly roadmapped tummy, and gearing up my pessimistic, critical eye for that CNN special.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Let's Define a "Threat"

All I’ve heard for the past month now is that illegal immigration is the biggest threat facing the United States today. On some level, I can’t let this immigration issue go, mainly because I’m listening to it every time I try to catch the news headlines on the radio, television, or internet. Apparently, the GOP scheme is working to a certain degree, and the media is doing their usual job by laying down like little bitches and playing directly into the neo-cons’ greasy hands.

They are calling illegal immigrants a “threat.” First off, let’s define “threat.” A “threat” is a Saudi Arabian jihadist named Mohammed with a hard-on for plastic explosives, an expired student visa, and a plane ticket for LAX. Contrary to what the media and Karl Rove would like you to believe, a “threat” is not a guy named Jose who wants to tile your bathroom floor for half the price of the guy in the phone book.

I realize that sometimes crime and bad shit happens, and sometimes it’s a Mexican guy who does it, but my experience growing up in a small, hick town where the prevalent minority was Mexican gives me vivid memories of school administrators telling each other not to bother with the Mexican kids, because they were going to drop out at age 16 anyways. Again, like most Americans, my wish would be that everyone wanting to enter our country would go through the proper legal channels. Even those ultra-liberal folks who want to grant amnesty to all illegals currently working in this country are on board with the idea of filing proper paperwork, but for those who don’t, and are smuggled into this country to work shitty jobs for horrid pay, they can hardly be called a threat.

The Bush Regime has created real threats by doing a fantastic job of pissing off everyone in the world. From Middle Easterners to Europeans to the portion of Africa that isn’t currently being slaughtered in genocidal massacre, people across the globe hate our red, white, and blue guts. Everyone was pulling for us after we were attacked in 2001, now most of the world wishes those al-Queda bastards would have used more planes. This to me is a very legitimate threat. If enough of the people on the island hate you, then they vote you off, and if enough of the world hates you, then you wind up divided into smaller countries. Unfortunately, our Resident-in-Chief doesn’t read past the first page of the newspaper (by his own admission), let alone, historical records known as books, so he might not be aware that when the rest of the world decides to take you out, they do, and that’s a very big threat.

Gas prices going over $3 per gallon is a threat, not because of foreign interests controlling our economy, but because people like me are doing the slow burn every time we watch that digital number go higher and higher. The other day, I shelled out $46 to fill an average, boring vehicle that three short years ago cost me under $20 to fill. I’m not whipping together a stash of Molotov cocktails just yet, but I am thinking about dusting off my copy of the Anarchist Cookbook if that gas price begins walking into the $4-per-gallon neighborhood. Americans like being comfortable, and when we have to give up going out to see a shitty, summer, blockbuster movie starring Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks or some other Tom, because the fuel that we use to sit in rush hour traffic is more expensive, and then Mr. President; you have yourself a very legitimate threat.

Other threats that seem more threatening than Maria’s army of reasonably priced housekeepers include white guys from places like Northern Idaho who work as janitors and garbage men during the day and train in their armed militia groups on the weekends. These assholes are as uneducated as they are obsessed with conspiracy theories, yet they are able to purchase semi-automatics at gun shows. If Cletus is armed, you must be alarmed!

The Chinese military build up should be seen as a bit of a threat, especially since they are using the money that our American corporations give them through cheap labor contracts to do it. Maybe someone should call all of the corporate robber barons who run the financial end of our world and play Nine Inch Nails’ “The Hand that Feeds” really, really loud.

Even the creepy-ass bird flu is way more of a threat than the guy who is willing to mow my lawn for $10 a week. Either way, the only threat that illegal immigrants pose is the one created by the neo-cons to make you forget about the real threats that are looming and ready to take us out at any moment. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to rummage through my garage for an old cookbook.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Funny, I Thought I Knew Her

Lately, my life has felt like one of those cheesy-assed chick flicks on the Lifetime Network where the main character lives with a spouse, sibling or family member all their life, then a series of events take place and the main character finds out about all this shit they never knew. Welcome to my world.

Growing up I always knew my mother had a bit of a wild past. I’m pretty savvy and catch on quickly, so with a little math it didn’t take me long to figure out that my mom raised quite a bit of hell as a teenage, since she was only 17 when I was born. From there my young memory is a little spotty, then again, how much can one possibly retain before the age of five. We moved from a small town in Connecticut to a smaller town in Idaho, and my mom told me that the move was because my father slacked on his regular visitation and that she couldn’t stand watching me cry when he didn’t show up.

This was bullshit, but very effective, because it kept me from having a somewhat decent relationship with him during my younger years. When it came to family or our past in Connecticut, my mother was elusive at best, and didn’t really give a whole lot of detail. We never went back for a visit, and when I was finally given a blessing to venture East at age 20, my mother was nervous. I should have suspected something, but after a lifetime of hearing one side of the story, you adopt it as truth. Besides, your mom wouldn’t lie to you, right?

Fast forward to 2004. My mother has a recurrence of a brain tumor and passes away quite quickly. We buried her exactly two weeks after celebrating her 49th birthday, and three weeks before Thanksgiving. After mourning for a few months, I decide to begin the New Year by reconnecting with my father and that side of the family that I had been held back from knowing. This is where it all begins.

I found out that my mom had worked for some unscrupulous characters, like the kind you’d find in the movie Goodfellas or the show The Sopranos. There was some trouble, and she picked up and moved us one night without warning, which answered my lifelong question of “why the hell would anyone in their right mind move to Buckfuck, Idaho?”

In the past couple of years I’ve discovered that my sister’s dad, who was believed to be a nice man who owned a construction company and lost his life in a car accident, might actually be the mob guy that my mom was hooked up with. My mother’s controlling nature, particularly over me, was not due to her lifelong worry that I might turn out like my dad, but her deeper fear that I would be like her, and that this woman/stranger also suffered from eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and a plethora of other shit that happens to be hereditary.

Recently, I have battled with a suspected thyroid disorder. I’ve been through thyroid blood testing on and off since I was 19, and this time, thanks to a little internet research, I dug deeper after they told me my levels were normal, and asked for a full thyroid blood panel. In a casual conversation, I asked my stepdad if he knew whether my mother had ever had her thyroid tested, and his response was “yes, she had a severe thyroid disorder, and was on medication for about seven or eight years.” What the fuck!

A lifetime of useless information like “you always wanted your name to be Elizabeth” or “Must Avoid Unnecessary Talking was always marked on your elementary school report cards” yet she never once thought that, “by the way, you’re thyroid might be severely screwed up” would be something I might actually want to know.

At this point, I feel like I could write a screenplay for the Lifetime Network or Women’s Entertainment Television. I’m venturing out East again next year with my sister in tow. I’m determined to find out more about this woman who I lived with for most of my life and called “mother”. My husband says I should drop it, but what I’ve discovered so far about my past has been so essential to my current mental well-being that I’m not willing to throw in the towel just yet.

Besides, maybe I’ll find out more interesting things about my mother and who she really was. Maybe she ratted on the mob, and all while I was growing up we lived under assumed identities, and who knows, maybe my name really is Elizabeth.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Immigration: Harnessing the Inner Racist

Immigration seems to be the word of the day lately in my dear, sweet, fucked up country. At first when this issue came to light, I thought it was funny, because of who was bringing it up. Rich, white, Republicans, you know, the kind that hires the maids, nannies, and groundskeepers with questionable documentation.

Now that immigration seems to be the distracting issue of the moment (this election year's gay marriage if you will) it's just got me pissed off. How can this party, that claims to represent the more righteous of our country, keep pedaling hate without someone calling bullshit on them? They love Jesus, unless he happens to be a migrant worker who snuck across the border to find low-level, curbside work to feed his family.

Right now, the neo-cons are basically looking to flare up the latent racism in their base, which is usually made up of lower income white people living in a bible-belty area (like Idaho) or rich, white folks who fancy themselves as too good to be bothered with immigration laws in the first place, especially when hiring the house staff. This is going to play out the same way that it did in 2004 with gay marriage, where the Right wanted you to believe that Rosie O'Donnell and Elton John were going to knock your door down, steal your children, and make *gasp* gay. Now in 2006, they want you to believe that a brown man with a thick mustache with the last name of Jimenez, Rodriguez, or Garcia is going to take your job and move his large, illegal family in next door and crap up your neighborhood with his Mexicaness.

By the way, this immigration thing is aimed squarely at Mexicans, because I haven't heard shit about the Chinese or Indians coming in from Canada, the European or Middle Eastern students who purposely overstay their visas (like the ones who took out the Towers), or even the Africans who might not have filled out their amnesty paperwork correctly. Nope, this is all about how well the cocksuckers in the White House can build on the fear of a Mexican invasion all to get stupid people who live paycheck-to-paycheck to elect them into office again without focusing on the fact that they live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Of course the Right would call bullshit on my logic about them trying to exploit latent racism for their own political gain, but it takes exactly five minutes for any talk show about immigration to turn from candid political issue discussion into full on Mexican bashing. They may start with the line about how illegal immigration is a drain on the economy, but it will end with the clear message that Mexicans equal crime.

Of course the Bush Regime continues to talk out of both sides of their ass on this issue. One minute the Resident-in-Chief is over-extending the military once again and sending the National Guard to the Mexican border, then a little while later, he’s talking about granting citizenship to immigrants who have been here for a certain amount of time. I guess he realizes that without cheap Mexican labor there might not be anyone to work the several hundred acres of land that make up his Texas ranch.

As a third generation American I have a bit of a soft spot for immigrants. I know the ideal is come over here and become a legal citizen, but when the country you happened to be from is so fucked up that they won’t let you have the proper paperwork without a hefty bribe, what’s a starving person to do. How quickly my fellow Americans seem to forget that if they look back far enough in the family tree they are bound to find an immigrant or two hanging out. I guess the immigrants of yesterday in their pageboy hats and wool knickers or their long skirts and babushka headscarves are far quainter than the ones they show on television in the dirty t-shirts and jeans hopping over chain-link fences.

I guess we will all have to hear the Right do their non-stop rambling and over exaggeration of the immigration issue for the next few months, then much like gay marriage, once the election is over, it will go away. Do you think the Right Wing voters will ever realize that they just keep being used by the neo-cons in power like pathetic bitches? Judging from the callers on the fascist talk station that comes on when my clock radio wakes me up at 7:00 am, not only are the Bush faithful concerned about immigration, they are willing to go to the polls in November, and vote their inner racist.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

To My Fellow Mamas on Mother's Day

Mothering is not for the meek, weak of stomach, or those with a fearful heart. It takes a lot of guts to be a mama, and if you want to be a good mama, it takes even more than that. As I sit here on my second Mother’s Day, I yearn to give a few shout-outs to my fellow mamas. The biggest joke that I’ve learned in motherhood is that the world still insists on referring to women as the “weaker sex”. I’ve seen my husband care for our daughter, and if women are the weaker sex, society as a whole is completely fucked.

Here’s to all the mamas out there who got that rude awakening once they became mothers, when they realized that none of those helpful parenting books covered topics such as: So You Want to Sleep and Shower All in One Day, Free Time, What the Hell is That?, or How to Keep Your Spouse from Running Like a Coward at the First Sign of Poop. Remember that terrifying moment when you were lying there looking at your baby and the reality hit that the baby was YOUR baby, and was going to be your baby for the rest of your life? I spent that whole night with the words, “Oh shit, what do I do now!” running through my head.

Here’s to all the mamas out there who got used to gross things very quickly. The first piece of advice I gave all of my expecting friends was; when you change the diaper, breathe through your mouth. Our society has us so used to watching death and dismemberment that looking at a whole batch of new baby poop isn’t that gross, but the smell is what churns your stomach. I would tell my friends to cut their nostrils out of the scenario at the first rip of the diaper Velcro, and get that tiny bottom cleaned as quickly as possible.

Amongst the things I never thought I’d get used to was being vomited on, holding someone while they vomited, bicycling tiny legs during the crapping process, boogers, boogers, and more boogers, and Five Alarm diapers. A Five Alarm diaper is one that’s so bad that you just want to take the kid and hose them off in the yard. Every mama (and even some papas) have been there, done that, and for the record, we never quite got used to it.

Here’s to all my mamas out there who have managed to keep marriages or relationships alive with their significant other even after they realized that they did the bulk of the work. Sure, these modern guys promised it would be a 50/50 workload split, but that didn’t happen, and it didn’t happen really quickly. When the kid has a Five Alarm, or is disagreeable, or later in the toddler years when they take off their clothes and refuse to put them back on again, does your spouse try and work through the problem? No, they yell for you. Remember the good ol’ days when you looked at this person you loved and thought; this is the most accomplished, capable person I’ve ever met. Yea, me too.

Here’s to all my mamas out there who have taken the kids on a trip and managed to get through airport security with a stroller, pull suitcase, diaperbag, and an infant, quicker than the schmuck businessman with the expensive laptop in front of you. We mommies are resourceful, yet we constantly get the bad rap. We are directed to a certain security line at the airport, and like clockwork, you can see collective rolling eyes from everyone directed to the same line standing behind us. However, what the impatient bastards following us don’t know is that we have it all down to a smooth move science, and have the amazing ability to load multiple bags, while collapsing a stroller, taking off our shoes and keeping a toddler in jammies from running through the metal detector all in a two-minute timeframe. Yet, we get no credit for our multi-tasking abilities, and continually get blamed for the one parent who takes forever at airport security.

Lastly, here’s to all my mamas out there who manage, on a daily basis, to be fantastic moms, while keeping a shred of their own identity. It is so easy to settle into the role of being your kid’s mom, and nothing else. The world makes us feel guilty for wanting some free time or needing “mommy’s day off” or basically, about anything we do that isn’t waiting on our child hand and foot, but we see through this guilt and realize that it’s just a means of manipulation to keep us from the identity we deserve. We can be our kids’ mommies, but we can also be wonderful, passionate, creative, intelligent women that make the world go around, and keep everything together through this shit storm we call a culture. And to think, they still refer to us as the weaker sex.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Annoying Stuff

Lately, there seems to be a lot of annoying crap out there, not the usual, run-of-the-mill annoying crap, but a new crop of crap. There is the usual bout of standard annoying shit such as pop music, infotainment media that attempts to pass itself off as legitimate and anything that claims to be helpful, but is just a big ploy to get you to buy something. I'm looking at you Dr. Phil! However, beyond the usual, I've made a few keen observations regarding the latest batch of annoyance.

David Blaine is extremely annoying, because he’s not a magician. A magician is someone who can do something cool and make you go "Wow" or leave you completely fascinated. Harry Houdini was a magician. David Copperfield is a magician. Even that over the edge, seems-like-he's-on-drugs comic, the Amazing Jonathan, is a magician. There is nothing magic about starving yourself while hanging out in a see-through box and foregoing showers for a few weeks. Models put hunger and emaciation on display all the time, and they don't carry around business cards that say "Magician". David, Sweetie, if you want to call yourself a magician then make something disappear or escape from a straight-jacket, but no more pissing in a cup for public display. A magician is supposed to make you go "oooohhh" not "eeewww".

Brittney Spears' Second Pregnancy. She's an easy target, and I'm lazy, so it's a good fit. This bitch has completely failed at the half-assed attempt to parent her first kid, so why is she having another one? Because she can. In any other situation, like if the parents were poor, or the mom was single and working constantly to keep the family afloat, and there were disasters such as the kid cracking its head open from a falling highchair, DSHS would be all over it. Brittney drives with her kid in her lap and doesn't even get ticketed. I'm no brilliant mommy, nor do I claim to be, but even in my complete inexperience I knew carseats were mandatory. Double standards drive me completely crazy, and in this particular situation expose a really annoying flaw in our society.

Iranian Outreach Letters. The insane son of a bitch that holds the presidency of Iran has been shooting his mouth off about wanting to blow Israel off the face of the Earth, encouraging Al Qaeda to annihilate the U.S., and telling women in his country that it will be a cold day in hell before they get anything that remotely resembles rights, now he pens a "let's be friends" letter and thinks everything is cool. I’m no foreign policy expert, but I know a crazy fuck when I see one, and linen-lined stationary aside, I wouldn’t trust this guy as far as I could kick him.

Failure of the Palestinian Government. When the Palestinian people elected a terrorist organization and got the Gaza Strip back, I knew it was going to be one hell of train wreck. Had they got the Strip back and elected a reasonable group of people, they would have had half a chance, but why choose prosperity when you can fuck your world up by electing hate incarnate. Now they are diving into poverty at record speed, the government is inept, they got one lone guy trying to make it all work, and who do they choose to blame…Israel and the West. How fucking annoying! Take some personal responsibility for once in your pathetic lives. If you have money, and you spend all that money to buy guns and explosives to attack Israel, and you leave nothing to pay for an infrastructure, then don’t bitch when there’s no running water.

Tom Cruise Mania. We all know he’s a bit of a kook, which makes him a little annoying, but I’m so sick of people trying to make him into more than he is. He is an actor that has had a pretty good career, made some decent movies, made some tremendous stinkers, might be gay, might be bi, but is very much a Scientologist. He knocked his young girlfriend up and they had a kid, now he’s out promoting yet another sequel, but that’s it. Aside from the good films, he’s really not worth mentioning, so why is it that I have to see his fucking face every time I turn around. He’s cute, but cute wears off after passing by two magazine covers. Enough Tom Cruise already!

I’m pretty sure I’ve covered everything for now. I could go off on an anti-Bush tangent, but I’ll let the opposing party do that around election time this fall. Hopefully, they actually will, and the fact that I have to hope that they will, is the most annoying thing I can think of at the moment.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Celebrity Baby Boom

I am so fucking sick of this celebrity baby boom. Apparently when two or more celebrities give birth, the tabloids, and mainstream media (shame on them) label it a boom, which means that until the celebrity or wife of celebrity spits the kid out, I’ve got to hear about it when I’m trying to catch the real news, or see the overdramatic updates every time I venture out to the store to purchase pesticide-free veggies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for anybody who welcomes a child into their home, but our society seems to give a status to celebrity parents that they don’t deserve. When I had Rachael, I spent the first month sleepless trying to figure out how to be a mother. If I was lucky, I managed a two-hour stretch of sleep, and if it was a fantastic day, that sleep would be accompanied by a shower. Call it a hunch, but I don’t think Katie Holmes will be relating to my scenario.

Everyone is raving over the fact that Angelina Jolie adopts children, yet they forget that she probably has one nanny per child, a housekeeper, a chef, and a personal assistant. If I had an army of people to take care of everything for me, and all I had to do was appear in public wearing designer duds and holding the kid every once in a blue moon, I’d have my own Josephine Baker-style rainbow family, too.

There are a couple of celebrities who have been very public about the fact that they don’t use help and are “hands on” parents, but this shouldn’t be something that’s wildly applauded. You had the kid, you raise the kid, and that’s the way it is. I don’t fault any celebrity mom for having a nanny on the set, it’s the same as daycare, and I think it’s cool that their kids get the opportunity to travel. However, I’m not willing to applaud their parenting skills until the kid turns into a decent adult who makes an honest contribution to society.

I’m sure Kathy Hilton thinks she did a fantastic job hiring great nannies to raise her kids, but look at the way those spoiled bastards turned out. One thing I have to give Donald Trump credit for, despite his many deplorable traits, is that he must be doing something right on the parenting front. His kids are getting graduate degrees and working hard at his company. Ivanka has said that she looks at the New York skyline and dreams about what she can add to it. Sure, most of us will never be able to relate to the opulent lifestyle that Miss Trump has, but at least she has a dream and wants to make a contribution to society. Hopefully, when she does become a success in her own right, she will mentor young women and empower them to follow in her tracks.

All bullshit aside, it will be interesting to see these celebrity babies grow up. I know that in the mid-90s smutmeister Larry Flynt announced some contest with readers to guess who would get into whoring first, Francis Bean Cobain or Lourdes Ciccone (Madonna’s kid). My vote is for Lourdes, because Francis has seen first hand what selling your soul for fame and drugs looks like, and probably wants to settle down to a normal life and career after penning the tell-all book about growing up with Courtney, of course. Madonna is quite strict with her children, so she is basically priming Lourdes to go on one hell of a rebellious outburst.

The risk in watching celebrity spawn grow into adulthood is that they will believe they can accomplish what their parents did by birthright alone. Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell are decent actors, but the verdict is still out on Kate Hudson. To date the most significant role she’s done is her portrayal of a groupie with a heart of gold in Almost Famous, not a big stretch considering the fact that she’s married to the stoner from the Black Crows. Martin Sheen managed to produce something good with Emilio Estevez, but then Charlie came along and took the family value down several notches.

Sometimes you get real gems like Laura Dern, Kiefer Sutherland, Mariska Hargitay, and Lenny Kravitz. Much like with normal people and their children, it’s all a crap shoot. If you raise your kids with a sense of purpose and let them know from the beginning that they have to make their own destinies, then they will be okay. It might be decades before we will know if Suri Cruise, Apple and Moses (Paltrow) Martin, or Baby ??? Jolie Pitt will be people who make valuable contributions to society, but the one thing we can count is the fact that their faces will be cluttering magazines, the internet and infotainment news shows for at least the next ten years…G-d help us!

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

House Cleaning (and Senate, too)!

Millions take to the streets marching for rights, everyone who drives a car is feeling a harsh pinch as gas prices go through the roof, and April was the bloodiest month in Iraq thus far. Thankfully, our trusted elected leaders are hard at work on our behalf in Washington D.C. They put their collective minds together, and faced with all of these mounting problems managed to introduce a resolution to make the English version of the National Anthem the official version, while deciding to give all American families a shitty little $100 tax credit to help with the cost of gas. Is it any wonder why mild-mannered punks like me hate the government?

The world seems to be crashing down and all these mental eunuchs in D.C. offer is a ridiculous, half-assed, somewhat racist attempt to rally American citizens around a baseless cause hoping to spark the asinine patriotism that got Resident Bush elected. Did the Senate convene to try to work towards a solution to this hot-button immigration issue? Did the House meet to try to pressure the Justice Department into beginning a REAL investigation into price gouging by the oil companies? Did the Pentagon get their shit together and consider a military coup? No! The only thing that our so-called leaders did this week was come up with some scapegoat National Anthem bullshit, while avoiding the 800 lb. gorilla in the room.

These assholes make six figures a year, get health benefits that your average Joe or Jane could only dream of, and regardless of how long they serve, get a pension for life. They owe us a decent amount of good work, but instead have given us hundreds (sometimes thousands) of days of garbage. Fortunately, I have a few good ideas that would reduce the number of corporate whores and absolute fuck-ups elected to office.

First of all, we need term limits; not just state-to-state, but nationally. I’m somewhat optimistic in my belief that most of the people who run for office for the first time go to D.C. wanting to make a change. I’m even willing to bet that the first time they are re-elected, they still have that hunger to do good, but by the time they’ve been around the bend the third time, they’ve become too engrained in the pissing contest. The lobbyists have moved in with the money, and the do-good politico becomes obsessed with their own power. The biggest argument I’ve heard against term limits is that nothing will ever get done. Well, nothing’s getting done right now, unless you consider having to sing the National Anthem in English or a puny, lame-assed tax credit, a step towards progress. If someone knew they only had a few years to get changes made, then maybe they’d get off their asses and do the job they were elected to do rather than sit there for years sucking off the corporate tit.

Second, cut those fucking bennies. No one should get a pension for life for two to four years worth of work. The benefits elected officials receive are so sweet, that I might actually consider running for office, and I hate the government! If spending two terms as a public servant was less financially rewarding then maybe there would an infusion of honor back into the idea of serving the public. Wouldn’t it be great if we could think of government officials with the same affection we have for good teachers, instead of realizing that they are all a big group of crooks who are interested in cashing in.

Third, no more corporate cash. I don’t like to think about any hard working person jobless, but I could make an exception for lobbyists. Not only should they be unemployed, they should get a good kick in the ass as they leave the lairs of their dirtbag, corporate employers.

Politicians and punks are natural enemies, mainly because politicians refuse to come down to the level of the working person. They might be there when they go to D.C., but the moment they make that mental leap where they believe they are above playing by the same rules that apply to everyone else, then they are like rotten fruit, and need to be put in the dumpster. As long as I nearly have to mortgage my house to pay for gas, while watching low-income kids fresh out of high school give their lives for an illegal war for oil, then someone in D.C. has some explaining to do.

Enough with the fake, bullshit rallying cries like this National Anthem business, or the measly $100, or anything else that’s spewed out of the ass of the neo-con Right the past six years, let’s look at what needs to be done, and get people into positions where they can do it. We may only have two parties (two very shitty parties), but right now we need a few good men, and a lot of good women to get this country back on track, and if we’re lucky some of them might even be a little punk.