Know When To Hose 'Em, Know When To Fool 'Em

The constitutional amendment to allow casinos in Ohio will kill puppies and kittens.

If you want to get people to vote against something, there are two proven methods:
1) Tell them it will raise their taxes.
2) Tell them it will hurt some innocent, pitiable victims.
If you go with option 2, the harm you claim does not need to be factual; people will not read the actual proposed law, they will believe what you say if it creates a perception that there’s a threat to their family (including pets)..

A recent example is the charge by some that the proposed health care legislation would establish “Death Panels” to decide if your grandparents should die. A catchy phrase that people can repeat always helps put the argument over. “Weapons of Mass Destruction” was another recent driver of policy.

Locally, in Ohio we have a new example of the “Pitiable Victim” strategy. “Foes: Casino plan hurts church festivals” (I lied about the puppies and kittens). Notice that the victim is not the Church; it’s the Church Festival, your source of summer fun, inflatable rides, beer and gambling.

Universal health care sounds good until you realize it means killing those family members we can’t afford to take care of. Casinos bringing in tourists and tax money sound good until you realize you can’t play Texas Hold ‘Em in the church parking lot next month. (And also when you realize that everyone else already has their own casinos so we’re just losing our own money). Festivals are a big deal around here, killing festival gambling might be worse than killing grandma.

Gambling is not specifically named as a sin in the Bible (I’m counting on you all not having actually read the document) but love of money, greed, coveting another’s money are all bad things in either the Torah or the New Testament Bible. Probably in the Koran - I mean - I am sure in the Koran also. So I figure the priests and ministers of the churches don’t organize the festival and probably avoid the events so as not to have to toss the moneychangers from the Temple … er, Church.

Those same religious leaders can’t actually push this initiative to protect gambling at church (possibly because it’s a lie, which is one of the commandment even priests follow). So the leaders are probably not the “Foes”; who is? It is “opponents including ‘church groups’…and attorneys for TruthPAC, a casino opposition group financed in part by horse tracks.”

Ah, the horse tracks. I am not cynical enough to suggest that it is the horse tracks who would be hurt most by the existence of casinos and that they just fabricated this “Demise of the Church Festival” story to divert our attention. Wait. Yes I am exactly that cynical, and more!

The basis of the claim is that “The very last paragraph of the proposed six-page constitutional amendment states that lotteries and bingo would not be limited by passage of the casino issue”. The contention is that church Monte Carlo nights, poker games etc. would be banned because they are not specifically mentioned. . I don’t really know if that’s true; I haven’t read the proposed amendment. But, if it is, the amendment would likely outlaw other forms of gambling not specifically mentioned, like life insurance and stock investments.

Hot Dogs in Hot Water Again

MORE LEGAL TROUBLES FOR TUBE STEAKS

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile was arrested and booked on charges of violating advertising laws in Hawaii.

The story clears up a bit of a mystery for me, explaining that the Wienermobile is "a 'bus' in the shape of a hot dog on a bun". It goes on to say that the vehicle "visited Hawaii from June 28 to July 19". It is not clear how the Wienermobile got to Hawaii or if it was travelling alone or with a companion.

Police were tipped off to the heinous crime by a vigilante group who call themselves the "Outer Circle", another group hiding its real agenda with a misleading name, pretending to be all about exposing gays when they are actually attempting to beautify Hawaii by getting wieners out of the public eye. Turns out UPI may have gotten the group's name wrong A Hawaii news source refers to the group as the "Outdoor Circle", which is gay-friendlier but, still, what the heck does that mean?

Oscar Mayer might have gotten away with their advertising crime spree if they had not boasted about their activity: "Bob Loy of the Outer Circle said the company (Oscar Mayer) acknowledges the Wienermobiles promote the company's products." I think they should have claimed ignorance. "You know, officer, now that you mention it, it does look kind of like a hot dog. I have no idea how our name got on there, though."

"The activist admitted some buses and trucks in Hawaii may carry signs bigger than the Wienermobile. 'Unfortunately, those things aren't against the law, and this is,' he said." This seems like a clear case of product profiling to me.

"The Outer Circle has written Oscar Mayer asking it to voluntarily keep the bus out of Hawaii in the future." That's ridiculous. If they are driving from California to Japan, they have to go through Hawaii, right?

I Feel Just Like a Cog in Something Turning

Maybe it's the time of year, or maybe it's the time of man...

Up until a few years ago I was a young man. At least, in my head, I was still that guy I was in college. I was able to exert myself physically or consume excessive food and drink and still get up in the morning with minimal resistance from my muscles and internal organs.

Now, those problems don’t just follow the nights of excess, I get the same complaints when I get up in the morning every day, and each and every time I get up in the night to go to the bathroom. “No, honey, no one’s breaking in, that’s just my (choose one or more: hip, knee, back, kidneys, colon, excess phlegm) creating that racket.”

Up until recently, I could travel back from Ohio to my old SoCal beach home and feel like I still belonged. Now, even though I don’t sport the plaid shorts, dress shoes and black socks that marked them, I have become the pale, flabby, aged Midwesterner we used to make fun of. I still get in and body surf, but I tend to look more like I stumbled helplessly into the wave than like I know how to ride it. The young women approaching me are not attracted by my style, they are lifeguards checking to see if I am hurt or lost. Since when have they allowed such little girls to be lifeguards?

Somewhere over the past very few years, I got old – I mean, I started feeling old and I don’t like it. And THIS is not helping:

WOODSTOCK: A FLASHBACK
Steven Reineke conductor
Jeans ‘n Classics, guests
featuring guitarist Rik Emmett from Triumph

Cincinnati. Pops. Orchestra. Doing the music of Woodstock. God, take me now.
I get melancholy enough, seeing the original artists from Woodstock (those that are still upright and breathing) doing their own hits.

My god, that picture just makes you think of a PBS tribute to the Big Band Era, does it not?

“We’ll get back to our Prehistoric Rock Revival right after this pledge break. Buzz your assisted living attendant and ask them call our number and make a pledge for you. WE SAID, BUZZ YOUR ATTENDANT AND … Oh, nevermind, you probably dozed off anyway.”

So, I don't need to see the Pops turn them soft and bland.

A pops orchestra tribute to Woodstock. SIGH. But, by golly, they made it hip, what with it being called “Woodstock: A Flashback”. Flashback … like in LSD flashback. See, because, if you remember the 70s, you weren’t really there. Well, um, yeah, when I was young, some people used drugs … but only for the purpose of ending the war. The Viet Nam War. Yes, the one you just studied in history class. SIGH.

I don’t want to see sad old men performing their hits badly. I sure don’t want to see the Pops playing those songs with orchestra instruments. I would much rather go home and listen to the original songs on my vinyl albums. Vinyl albums – the big round flat discs – look like licorice pizza and you put them on a turntable. Part of a stereo. SIGH

Airplane

We were sitting in the gate area, waiting for our flight when the 4 TSA agents came up. They were clearly there on business – it wasn’t quite as dramatic as, say, “The Wire” when the cops come into the courtyard at the low-rise apartments and everyone yells “five-oh” and scatters – but these four officers came in and “took positions”, definitely there on business.

One stood with his back to the wall by the door to the jetway, one moved somewhere behind me, one gave the lowdown to the gate agent and the fourth questioned “The Witness”.

The Witness was a woman about my age, seated opposite me. She spoke to the agent as they both looked at someone somewhere behind me. I heard her say “…about ten minutes ago…” She had observed some suspicious activity and as the incessant indoctrination announcements instructed, she had alerted someone. I appreciated that she had done so, but now I had to figure out who the terrorist(s) was (were).

I turned around and immediately saw two bearded men traveling with modestly-dressed women, all wearing head coverings of a different culture. They were Mennonites.

I wondered what suspicious acts they had been engaged in that had alerted The Witness. Perhaps they had been sharing fried chicken and homemade pies “family style”. Maybe she had seen weapons of mass consumption. I’m not trying to stereotype people here; it’s just that I have come in contact with the Mennonites and Amish people only at bed and breakfasts and restaurants in Ohio and in Pennsylvania. There are always large quantities of food concealed in kitchens or even openly displayed in their gathering places.

As the situation developed, it was obvious that the TSA agent trying to be inconspicuous by the jetway door was going to pull the terrorists aside and water board them … or at least wand them and look through their carry-ons. But the Mennonites boarded and front of me and went through unmolested. I had apparently made an assumption based only on the fact that they looked different from me and I was embarrassed. The worst thing was that I wouldn’t get to see the real terrorists pulled aside and tortured.

As people boarded after me I worried whether the terrorists had been arrested or any of them had slipped through. During the flight I thought I had figured it out. There was a young couple who had smuggled aboard a baby designed to render us helpless. The baby screamed through most of the 5-hour flight, especially loudly during the heavy turbulence, when we just wanted silence so we could weep and pray to our God in peace. Halfway through the flight everyone in coach (first class had been provided noise eliminating headphones) went to the couple and promised to renounce our evil Western lifestyles, but it did no good. Turns out it was just a crying baby.

The actual terrorists turned out to be a trio of women dressed as flight attendants. Prior to the flight they had somehow secreted tremendously heavy metal carts aboard the aircraft. The wheeled carts were just slightly wider than the aisle between the seat row. One hour into the flight, the women grabbed the carts and ran them pell-mell up the aisle, smashing armrests, shattering elbows and ripping legs off at the knees. They tried to cover their mission by tossing snacks and beverages at the passengers, but these just became part of the scene of carnage, mixing with the blood and severed appendages. The screaming of the multitude momentarily drowned out the baby.

Shortly thereafter, the women came by with hot towels to staunch our wounds and comfort us. It never did become clear what their mission was.

Condoms or Credit Cards - What's In Your Wallet?

Ohio may become one of many states to restrict credit card advertising on state university campuses because “students are enticed to sign up for cards by free gifts” and then, presumably, are powerless to avoid debt, despair and destruction. The message is that credit cards are like heroin, which everyone, given the slightest opportunity, would OD on, assuming they were first enticed with free gifts*.

The people who think that keeping credit cards away from the kids is the way to stop them from getting in debt are the same people who think that “abstinence only” will prevent pregnancy and STDs.

Credit cards are a tool for monetary transactions. People are tempted to use them unwisely and get into trouble unwittingly. Taking the tool out of someone’s hand does not end the temptation or prevent future trouble. (Ironically, with sex, putting the teen’s tool in his/her hand DOES reduce the potential problems).

We put 16-year-old kids inside massive death machines and send them off to driver’s training so they can learn to use the car responsibly. But we can’t teach them fiscal responsibility? No, because spending money you don’t have is the foundation of our economy. We can’t trust the President to not put us irretrievably into debt, so how can we trust the college students who campaigned for his election?

By example, American parents teach their children that money does not grow on trees, it sprouts from the wall at the mall or from free-standing ATMs. During March Madness college basketball games, we have been bombarded with commercials enticing us to get a certain credit card because we can put a cute picture on it. We are likewise flooded with ads urging us to buy beer, but at least the beer ads suggest that you “drink responsibly” – and, though I’ve tried, you can’t drink beer you don’t have.

Requiring credit card pimps to stay a hundred yards from campus won't do much to prevent credit card debt among students. A better law would be one requiring parents and educators to exhibit and teach the students responsibility and moderation in all things including law making.

(*NOTE: I am aware that it is a true fact that "free gift" is a repetitively redundant phrase, indicating overextended word use by a person needing verbal responsibility and restraint.)

Stock of Love

America loves sleazy, skanky people on TV.
Remember when spring break, became MTV Spring Break? The media not only took over a simple college vacation week, they morphed it into a sponsored frenzy that other media could then cover with whatever angle suited their demographic (from outrage at Fox News to jealous disdain by old rockers at VH1).
It was the same thing that ESPN did by bringing play-by-play coverage to the innocent National Spelling Bee except the Bee has more underage teens and fewer t-shirt lifting skanks shaking it in the camera.
Remember when Jerry Springer, the king of sleaze, hosted MTV’s Spring Break? Jerry Springer was once Mayor of Cincinnati. He ran for Governor of Ohio and once considered running for Senator here a few years ago.
The people serving in Congress are no more qualified to be there than Jerry Springer. That is why it is ridiculous that Congress is now in charge of huge portions of the banking/investment industry. Sure the US Treasury is involved, but they are not set up to run real banking operations. Tim Geithner looks like one of the ‘socially awkward contestants from “The Pick-Up Artist”.
And now, like MTV did with Spring Break, the media has made hearings of the Senate Finance Committee actually watchable. Senators and Representatives are making television for the masses with their trash-talking and put downs of the banking geeks who got s**tfaced on bad credit and pissed and puked all over the economy. Which, if our government was savvy enough, could be turned into a deficit reduction production with sponsorship of the high-budget reality show they are creating on the fly.
All they need to really catapult this to the top of the ratings is Jerry Springer to host and maybe some girl-on-girl make out scenes with Feinstein and Pelosi.
Seriously, what if they took the AIG executives and some taxpayers and put them all together in a house with cameras following them 24/7? The drama would unfold as the execs debated giving back their bonuses and romance developed among the opposing factions. Taxpayers would reveal their diminished assets and AIG execs would walk around in thongs stuffed with artificially enhanced wallets.
This would make money for the government and perhaps save the lives of the Wall Street skanks as America falls in love with those bad boys.
I’m going to pitch this to MTV, so give me some ideas of names for the show.

In The Jailhouse Now

In Blue Ash, Ohio, an 89-year-old grandma was arrested for not giving some kids a football back after it landed in her yard. I live in Blue Ash, Ohio, which is a suburb of Cincinnati. I don't know these people but I have fewer than 6 degrees of separation.
The football incident was a culmination of an ongoing dispute - Grandma Jester has warned the boys that they will lose their balls if she gets ahold of them. The woman has confiscated 3 or 10 of the kids' balls, depending on who you ask.
It was one of the dads who called the police. Is that really the lesson he wants to teach his children? If little Jimmy came to me and said "Mrs' Jester took my football and won't give it back," I would say, "Did she tell you not to let it land in her yard?" "Yeah, but..." "Did she tell you that she would keep it if it did?" "Yeah, but..." "Yeah, but I'm sorry, it's your own fault." Bitter old people keeping kids balls that go in their yard is an American Tradition. It's part of the fabric of our great society. "Mr., can we have our ball back," is the dialog of Americana. If we lock up Crotchety Old Ball Keeper, we are no better than godless communists. Hopefully those boys are sleeping uneasily tonight, with visions of a bitter old grandma coming after them in the dark to grab their balls and never let go.

If God's On Our Side

I have been reborn. Previously I denied that God could be interested in football.

"And, seriously," I wrote, "if God were interested in football, why would it be played on the Sabbath (Friday night and Saturday for you Jewish, high school and college fans or Sunday for the Christian, NFL fans?"

Since then I have had a revelation; it is precisely the fact that God created Football on the Sabbath that gives me faith that he is a fan. When a player “takes it to the house” it is God’s house. This is why we should worship at the stadiums and in front of our TVs instead of in Churches and synagogues.
Ohio is full of religious zealots. High school football may not be as big here as it is in Texas, but it is followed with holy devotion. We get to see 16-year-old kids interviewed on the news, developing their big time cliché skills (“we just went out and played our own game” “I give all thanks to God” “when one guy has a bad game, someone else steps up”). I’m not so much a high school fan though, I follow the college denomination. As I reported last year, I am a convert to Temple B'Chai (usually transliterated as “Buckeye”). Now I have a crisis of faith as Beanie Wells, the star running back, sits on the sideline with an injured toe. It is not so critical this week as it will be next week when The Ohio State University plays against USC in Los Angeles. What is God trying to say? Will Beanie be miraculously healed before next Saturday? Or does God actually support our enemies, the radical, fundamental Trojans?
This is a similar conundrum to that faced by those who believe we are on a mission from God in Iraq. When the enemy has success there, don’t the radicals run down the field pointing their finger heavenward, thanking God (by any other name, still the same) just like we do?
Whose side is God on? That question was best posed by the poet, Robert Zimmerman.

A Place For My Stuff and Stuff For All My Places

My wife and I took a long weekend to get away from our stuff for a while. We were going to drive to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, but what with the price of gas and all the trouble in Darfur, we decided to stick to Southern Ohio.
We spent our time on two quests. The first was to stuff ourselves by discovering some diners, drive-ins and dives, featuring comfort (fatty) foods. The best of these were Beaugard’s Southern BBQ in Wilmington, Ohio and Joe’s U.S. Route 40 Grille in Springfield, Ohio, where we asked what kind of food they had and the waitress said, "Everything". (It is true - the website is woefully deficient in showing what they offer). The worst was the Oasis Café in Xenia, Ohio, where the waitress hid her mouth with her pad as she listed the salads and soups. This should have been a clue.
The second mission was to acquire more stuff. This was done initially by going to Columbus and buying some Ohio State paraphernalia to brand us as Ohio State parents, as much as this goes against my SoCal DNA. Second, we did what I have to describe as “antiquing”, because that is a short, descriptive term, so it’s convenient, even if not accurately descriptive of what we did. We went to a giant antique mall to shop, though we are not buyers of antiques in the common use of the term: old furniture or valuable works of art. We were in the market for collectibles; old knick-knacks and worthless, nostalgic possessions.
The term “collectibles” was coined by the antique mall industry because it conjures the image of “valuables” while drawing in buyers with lesser means. But collectibles are merely things that can be collected, like dust or grass clippings. “Collectibles” is a half-step up from “recyclables”, which is just trash with a reprieve.
My wife and I already have several collections that we were seeking to add to. For reasons too mushy to elaborate on, we have a collection of bunnies, or, more accurately, representations of bunnies. We have fabric bunnies and wooden bunnies and plastic bunnies and pictures of bunnies on plates and cups and bowls. If the bunnies are named Peter or Wiggly, the representations are more valuable expensive.
We have bottles that once contained milk from dairies we’ve never heard of. But they have amusing slogans or, perhaps, pictures of bunnies. We have collections too numerous to list, which all started at some antique store or another. We have a collection of little notebooks in which we could catalog the collectibles and where we collected them. But we haevn’t.
We also have collections that weren’t spawned in antique malls. I have my old Sports Illustrated magazines in the basement, between the comics and the Playboys. I collected each of those at different phases in my life, with some overlapping.
A collection is anything you have more than two of, just as it takes at least three cats to make a crazy lady. And once you have a collection of item X, according to my wife, you have to buy more. You can easily do that on eBay and save gas, but then you would miss a world of opportunity. In 1968, I saw Don Drysdale break the record for consecutive shutout games. Walking down a random aisle in the antique mall, I spotted a Sports Illustrated that had Drysdale’s picture on it, with a row of 9 zeroes above his head. I had gone 40 years without realizing that I wanted and needed that magazine. I never would have stumbled on it while cruising eBay. Furthermore, I may have that issue in my basement - Don Drysdale, somewhere between Donald Duck and a pair of double D’s - but I would never have thought to look for it. It was much easier to pay $4 for it in a store than try to dig it out of a box.
We also bought an old bottle, that had once contained chocolate milk, because it had a cute picture of a cow on it. How would we have known to look for that on eBay? We collected some nice memories, but not much stuff. In regards to stuff, it was not a very successful trip, considering the cost of gas to get around. However, we did eat all our vegetables at every meal, which, someone's mother would have assured me, benefited the starving children of Africa.

antiquing trip = piquant, tiring

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What it Was Was Football

When I first became interested in college football, I was a teenager living in LA and OJ Simpson was still a hero, not a killer. The only slashing he did then was running for touchdowns, leading USC to victory over rival UCLA and Heisman winner, Gary Beban. OJ later won the Heisman and a Rose Bowl, but then lost to bitter rival Ohio State. Back then the Rose Bowl was exclusively a contest between the Pac 8 (either USA or UCLA) and the Big Ten (either Ohio State or Michigan). At that time Ohio State was coached by Evil Incarnate, Woody Hayes.
As years passed, I became more interested in pro football. Yes, children, LA actually used to have professional football teams. The Chargers left LA for San Diego before my time; but the Cleveland Rams replaced them and I was an LA Rams fan. Then the Rams left for Anaheim, the Raiders arrived from Oakland and then went back. I can't really critisize these teams; I myself left LA for Cincinnati and became a Bengals fan (Bengals current quarterback, Carson Palmer, is a USC grad and Heisman winner who has not killed anyone yet).
I never followed college football during those years and I certainly was not about to root for the Ohio State Buckeyes.
When my neice went to Cal I paid a little attention to their football team, which challenged USC a few times and I also checked in on the University of Cincinnati when they made it to a few minor bowl games. But I never watched any games. And my wife never watched even more games than I never watched.
I've told you all this so you will understand how bizarre it was that Karen and I were intently watching LSU play Arkansas yesterday and we really cared about the outcome. Why? Because if LSU lost, it was one of the steps needed for Ohio State to get back in the running for the national championship. Yes, Ohio State. See, our daughter is going to Ohio State. Even SHE, my almost fashion designer, sports hating daughter, has become a college football fan. And all 3 of us knew the teams involved and the scenarios that needed to happen for The OSU to get into a championship. It's still possible, but, even though LSU did lose (great, 3 overtime game!) Ohio State will probably end up in the Rose Bowl playing USC. And I'll be rooting for Ohio State. That's like if I switched from being a Dodger fan to being a Yankee fan. But you know, Woody Hayes is long gone and OJ is in jail and I'm paying tuition to Ohio State. So my money's on them.