The King is dead...............

PSA : Sarcastic bloviation know as a rant is to follow, you have thusly been warned:

Michael Jackson is dead. I heard this 'news' report the other night. I thought to myself, well that's unfortunate, or misfortunate as the case may be. I took in the information, processed it, filed it according to its importance and moved on. Why have so many of the rest of you failed to do this simple thing? 24 hour news reporting, speculation, Requiems, 'news' specials, docudramas, 60 minute specials and all the rest have flooded the airwaves ever since the man died. Holy cow, whats wrong with you people, what is wrong with the media? If I may be just a little callous for a second, the king is dead, who cares? Okay, now that I got that off my chest, let me break this down a bit more.

The picture above is a photo of a journalist, an anchor man, a man by the name of Walter Cronkite. Take a good look because you haven't seen many journalists or anchormen since this guy went off the air. Since the advent of CNN things have gone way downhill. I remember when you had 3 or 4 networks who broadcast the news. They had news on from noon to 12:30 then from 6:00 to 6:30 and national news came on at 11:00. We learned everything we needed to know in this span of time. Now even the networks start local news at 4:30 and we have several 24 "news" networks to choose from. They must find things to fill in this space. This is one of the causes of painfully repetitive and too much in depth reporting on things like Michael's death. I miss the way it used to be, it was better back then. If Walter Cronkite had been the man in charge the other day, the news would have went like this.

" Michael Jackson was reported dead today, he was famous for his music and he was infamous for a variety of other reasons. He was know as the King of pop. Some will miss him. And now for the Weather."

That would have been it, all, finished, finite, done, over DUN even. He would have told us what happened, avoided inserting his opinion or disrespecting the dead by saying anything negative, he would have told us just the facts and moved on to more news.

More news, you know, things like Neda and the crisis brewing in Iran, The missile laden ship North Korea has on patrol that is irritating China, the human trafficking bust that linked Taiwan and the U.S together in a human slave trade ring. Those real news items that got bumped by over kill coverage of MJ.

A lot of people might think that I just have this opinion because I didn't like Jackson. Oh, no, this is not the case. I think this is dangerous and I think this is a sad statement about our culture. It makes no difference to me who the dead guy is, this sort of media induced idolatry is sad and frightening. For those who believe otherwise let me tell you a few things. Michael Jackson was a man, a human being. Nothing more, nothing less. He deserves our respect and his family deserves to be left alone to grieve in their own PRIVATE manner. We are not his family and do not need to be part of his end. He is nothing more than a man and its awful that we try to make him into something else. If you are a person of faith, any faith, you must accept that it is in Gods hands now. If you are a person without a faith then its just over now, either way, let the story end and move on.

I have , I think, now stated why I think this is a sad commentary on our culture, but why do I believe this is dangerous. In short, the Tank Man. You remember the Tank Man don't you? He was the guy who for a brief moment stopped the heart of the Chinese people. He walked out, alone, in front of a column of approaching tanks. The tanks stopped. He stood there with his little bag of nobody knows what and held up the entire communist movement. The general public, 20 years later, still doesn't know his name. This one act of defiance, brief as it may have been, ended up putting China on a new road. A road that allowed huge reforms to come down to the people quickly. Yes China is still communist, yes China is still repressive, yes China still censors this very act and tries to hide its history from the public, but the government did bend to the will of its people and life has improved 100 fold over the last 20 years. No, China did not break, but it did bend, it bent a lot. So why did such a strong and powerful government and nation bend to the will of one man with a bag who ran up in front of a tank like he had no sense? They bent because some brave reporters got it on film and smuggled it out of the country thus avoiding the censors. Once this happened, the whole world saw what happened. We saw it over and over again. Why do I think this celebrity idolatry is dangerous? What would have happened if some international star suddenly died, like in a car wreck, or something? What if princess Di was killed that day? The media of today would have put her story on 24-7 for weeks and the Tank Man would have faded into history as a footnote and China would have been all the worse off for it. I realise that this is supposition on my part, but this whole Jackson thing is just disturbing.

So, dear media, I want to hear the news, just the news, and nothing but the news. I don't want your opinions, I don't want manufactured nonsense and sensationalism. I want short to the point and move on news, got it?

"Bill Clinton was found dead today in his home with a ho-ho in one hand and a cigar in the other. Hillary Clinton has confessed to his murder but asked for leniency calling it justifiable homicide. Her trial is set for July, now for the sports"

"Former rock star Keith Richards was found dead today of an apparent seizure. Wait, oh, he is alive, never mind, and now for the financial news"

"The Baker family theme park and school of ministry was raided again today. 14 people were arrested and the park is closed until further notice. The Baker ministry is still open for business but it has changed over to a jail ministry for reasons of convenience, and now for the weather"

This is what the news should look like in my opinion. What is going on right now is not news, it is certainly not journalism and I for one find it to be at least as distasteful as a Micheal J. Fox bobble head doll, which is now being made available outside his book signings. Only in America, land of the free and home of the slightly disturbed.

Walls down, walls up?

This will not be the normal type of post that I usually toss out there. To some folks this will make sense and have meaning, to most people this will seem cryptic, riddle-ish, and nonsensical. It is not intended to be that way, it just is what it is and what it is, is raw.

(is there a rule against putting 'is' in a sentence 5 times?)

Over the course of my life, particularly my younger years, I became rather adept at building walls. I could build them to keep things in, emotions, anger, fear, etc. I built strong and tall and thick walls to barricade these things within and keep them from seeping out into the world. I would do this to ostensibly control and prevent them (those things) from going out and causing damage to others, to relationships, and to myself and my situation.

I also was very talented at the constructions of walls to keep things out. I could keep out anything that I deemed a risk to hurt me. I could prevent people from getting to close, from getting to understand and know me and what I think and how I feel.

At some point when I became older I made the logical observation that while I was extremely talented in this area, the process actually was acutely illogical. Think about it for a minute, if I can keep pain out with walls, what was it that made me angry and hurt that I needed another wall to keep in? Once I became consciously aware of this issue I realized that I had barricaded a lifetime of darkness inside my walls and was keeping them all locked up in my mind. My mind was self destructing from the turmoil, but my outward appearance was remaining unchanged. This was the point in my life when something changed. Different people call this change by different names. Some say I found God, some say God found me, some say I got religion, some say I was born again, some call it an epiphany, some say I was covered in grace. Still others point to verses and say things like, everything old is washed away and made new again, you are (I am) a new creation. These phrases all have there faults but boil down to the same thing. I changed, I was changed.

At this point I began the demolition process of tearing down walls, not alone mind you, but the walls were torn down brick by painful brick. I would remove each brick and expose the mess behind it. The mess was cleaned up for me and the bricks were hauled away for me, but I had to remove each brick on my own. My hands became torn and callus and my back ached with each brick, but with my nightly rest my hands were bandaged and my back strengthened to begin anew the next day. Events were dropped in my life that motivated me to keep going with this process. Eventually, over a period of time I began to relish this labor because I knew I was getting stronger and learning and growing. Finally, the walls were down and the mess cleaned up and the piles of bricks were removed and hauled away.

Now you know the past, here is the present.

I miss my walls. I know it doesn't sound right, it doesn't even feel right. Something is amiss. There is a fox in the hen house I think. I feel like I am being worn down little by little without having any cover to dive behind and hide. I don't want to resort to my old ways of survival, because I am aware that the price was too high. I am not having success with doing the things I know I should be doing. I walk through each day uncomfortably. I feel the pressure beginning to build and my mind is getting more and more cluttered. My ability to be patient is getting thinner, I am getting grumpier and more short tempered. I cannot and will not allow myself to completely lose my temper ever again. That would simply not be fair to my wife or my daughter, so this must not ever happen. This battle is getting more intense however as I feel that old troll climbing back on my shoulder and it is getting more and more difficult to dismiss the rage that is boiling down in me.

Why do I blog? Well, many reasons. One reason is just this is a medium that I can use to communicate things. I am given the opportunity to share things about life in general, things about Gracie, things about politics, opinions, news events, whatever. I also have been know to use this medium for self therapy.

I am married to Bill Cosby..........

Okay, now that I have your attention, I am not really married to Bill Cosby, and my wife is not Bill Cosby, but my daughter has become the Cosby kid that he talks about all the time and I find that we, the parents, are living out all of the things Bill was talking about.

I have a Cosby kid in my house, it happened all of the sudden but I don't know exactly when. If you know the skit and conversations I am talking about from Bill Cosby, the following will sound all too familiar. Just do not forget, what follows is conversations and happening with MY daughter and not Bill's.

Gracie has suddenly gone deaf. Nothing her mother and I say has the ability to penetrate through her ears and take up even temporary residence in her brain. Her mom says stop talking, Gracie gets louder and says, "but but but I wasn't finished yet" I tell her to stand still she will stand in front of me gyrating like a drunken ballerina at a vodka tasting festival in Kiev. If I grab her arms to make her stand still she prances with her feet like she is standing on hot coals. Mom says set up and eat, Gracie lays her head on the table and sighs. But the best part is when you call her on these things.

Gracie, why did you do that, why did you walk away when I said come here, did you hear what I said.

Yes, I heard you, but I want listening.

Gracie, why did you walk away!

I wasn't listening........

Gracie, you said you heard me.

I did hear you, but I wasn't listening.............

Gracie, if you heard me, you were listening, why did you disobey?

I don't know.......... I'm sorry, I apologize, I wont do it again....

Okay Gracie, that's better, now sit up here and be quiet for a minute........

( she turns and walks away)

GRACIE !!!!!!!!!!!!! WHERE ARE YOU GOING!!!!?????????

I wanted to go upstairs and get something.

I just told you to sit down and be quiet and you walked away, right after you said you would listen.

I heard you, I just wanted to............................

You see what I mean. Her mother used to be a beautiful women (really she still is) but now she just sits with her hands pushing the skin up her face making those deep furrow wrinkles on her forehead and her left eye squints and twitches all the time.

Gracie will start to say something and then momma will interrupt to tell her no and be quiet. Then two seconds later, when no one is currently speaking, Gracie will say something and before the first syllable is out momma hollers, "DON'T INTERRUPT ME"

I just try to get through the day. When I come home from work I am swarmed upon like a lame rabbit getting tossed into a den of malnourished wolves. Gracie wants fresh meat to talk to and play with. Momma wants adult conversation and relief from the constant chatter that is Gracie. I love both of my ladies and I understand both of their viewpoints, but I just want to make it to the living room without getting wounded.

"Dad is great, he gives us Chocolate cake" This is a line from Bill Cosby. I understand this line now. Sometimes its easier for us dads to just let them eat cake, even if it is for breakfast, than to actually have to deal with the harsh reality of being a parent. No, I don't let Gracie have chocolate cake for breakfast, not often anyway. We must stick together and do our best to be responsible parents, but sometimes I do fall victim to just wanting to be the cool dad and take the easy way out. Every time I do this however, just like Bill, Gracie tosses me under the bus with momma. I let Gracie have chocolate milk for breakfast a few weeks ago. I told her that this was a treat, it was not normal, don't ask for it again, and please please please don't tell you mother I caved.

" DADDY LET ME HAVE CHOC CO LATE MIIIIIILK, DADDY DID DADDY DID, HE SAID IT WAS OKAY, IS HE IN TROUBLE NOW?

The answer to that was yes. Rightfully so, but yes. Thanks for throwing me under the bus kiddo.

busy busy busy..............

Unlike the Fed Ex commercial I am poking fun at with the title of this post, we have been busy lately.

Our furniture finally arrived, two click-clack sofas, one trundle bed (which is two beds in one) two book case/cubby hole things and ceiling fan all needed put together and installed in their new homes.

Definition of fantasy: assembled furniture at a reasonable price sold by rational mature sales people and delivered by competent professionals to the location of their use in a timely manner.

Definition of reality: a 21 year old boy sells you the furniture that you have to assemble all of and tells you there is no margin so no room for negotiation, takes 3 weeks longer to deliver it than he said, delivers it after hours and charges you cash as long as you help him carry it, and (for the piece of resist-aunce) shows up with your stuff stacked 10 foot high in the back of his Toyota pick up with his girl friend in the passenger seat. He of course charges you cash on a COD so he doesn't pay taxes or have to go to the bank. My neighbors were sitting in the driveway laughing............

So me and wonder boy carry the furniture up stairs to Gracie's room and downstairs to the basement, and while I am still gasping for air I hand him 60$ cash for his 8 minutes of labor and the 3 miles he put on his Toyota. For that kind of margin you would think some fish nets and red lipstick would be involved, but no. Does anybody know just how heavy a trundle bed is? I think this thing was shipped from Vietnam in the center of the ship to keep it from listing to one side or the other.

Once Mr. Clampit left our house, it was time to put this stuff together. I was warned to read the directions first. This was odd because the directions had no words to read. No words, just pictures. No numbers to tell me what order, just pictures. I end up putting the couch arms on backwards because in order to put the screws in you must be a master of yoga and be able to stand on your head and wrap your leg behind your head while holding the couch up with one hand and putting the screw in with the other. I am not good at yoga, but I manage to get everything put together and install the ceiling fan without electrocuting myself. This was a plus.

What else can I share, ah, the Tick. We have removed not one but two ticks from Gracie in the last couple of weeks. It would seem that the playground at school is near an open field of tall grass, tall grass that is full of ticks. The first one I pulled out of her ear, not to bad. The second one set up residence on the crown of her scalp. That one pulled a lump of flesh off with it and bleed a lot. Bad bug, SPLaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaT!

Let me see, what else has happened, oh yes, I am now the proud parent of a 1st grader. Gracie not only passed Kindergarten, but she did so brilliantly. She achieved at or above every benchmark that was set. This may sound like "no big deal" but for us, this was tremendous. Angie and I deliberated diligently over a long period of time about when to put her in school. We fretted about her being too immature, and at times that is still an issue. We worried that due to her speech problems and being so small and so young that she would not be able to adapt and flourish just yet. All of our worries and concerns vaporized one at a time, she became more confident, more mature and she learned to read and her extra work in ESL classes has been so helpful with her speech, its just amazing to us. I am so proud of how well she is doing and how much she loves school. She was a sad little princess-eta today, she cried because school was over and she will miss her friends and her teacher. She wants to get together with her teacher this summer for a picnic or something. Her teacher did an excellent job with her, I cant say enough about her, she was just priceless. We were so blessed to have this set of circumstances for Gracie, the teachers, the coaches, the neighbors, her friends, they have all been such a blessing to us, and it just feels like God put us right in the middle of where we needed to be, right in His hands, amongst a group of great people who really do care about Gracie and us for that matter. I couldn't ask for anything more. Even the neighbor boys look out for Gracie, its just way cool to see them with her, and her BFF down the street really does protect her and help her try to find her way.

Well, enough of the melancholy goo goo, time to hit the sack and try and get some sleep. I hear Angie upstairs sniffing and sneezing, sounds like another summer cold has hit ye ol ranch.

Undies

The linked article here : http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/News/TheEconomyDyn.aspx?cp-documentid=20018117&GT1=33002

is called, "what men's undies tell us about the economy".

According to the article, one of the indicators that really smart people like Alan Greenspan use to determine the health of our economy is the sale trends of men's underwear. The theory is that underwear is one of the first things men stop purchasing when they feel an economic squeeze. Reason being, no body sees them anyway and as long as they still function, they don't need to be replaced. This obviously doesn't apply to women's drawers equally. Once men regain some confidence in their financial situation, they then re-enter the underwear market and purchase new skivvies to replace their well worn and itchy hole filled ones they have been skimping by on for a while. On the surface this seems logical, and in practice it does seem reasonable, but lets talk about this a little shall we.

Well after reading this article a little while ago I decided to put the premise into practice. I came home and took a full inventory of my collection of boxer shorts. Yes, that's not a euphemism, I only adorn myself with boxers. I don't like the tightey whiteys because, well, they are tight and white. I like loose and uh, free better than tight and pent up. ( Too much info I am sure, but what were you expecting from me?) I like darker colors and colorful patterns, it avoids or delays the yellow in front brown in back type issues. Bikini briefs present a different issue, my pants are usually sagging in the rear and if the briefs are too brief then you get the Greek hairy plumbers crack point of view, and nobody wants that. The thong or g-string is just forbidden for my age bracket and really, why would any guy want to risk sending the boys to opposite sides of the room anyway? So, what was I saying, oh yes, inventory. I have 18 pairs of boxers. Of these 18 pairs, 10 of them are worn so badly that the elastic is showing through the top. 5 of these are in danger of catastrophic failure. All 10 are well past their prime. I have one pair that has a series of little holes in the right hip, they have been there for years but the holes are now growing towards each other. I have 1 light blue pair with a palm tree on them that have gotten too loose around the legs, feels like having a skirt on when I wear them (let it go, for your own good, let it go) So that's 12 of 18 that need replaced at this point. I also have one pair that is too tight, they must have shrunk or something. The oldest pair is something like 10 years old, and the newest is at a gift from Christmas. Having said all that, 83% of my undies need pitched. This would follow with Greenspans theory, but by using me as the benchmark, we have been in a recession for a couple of years and we hit depression last year.

Now, having had taken inventory, I went to Meijers last night. I went with the intention of stimulating the economy. I planned to buy me at least one new pair of boxers and maybe buy one a week for the next few weeks. I figured if I could do this and get a few of my friends to do the same, we could put some some movement behind the leading underpants indicators and get this economy rolling again. I found a pair of boxers like the ones I wear and the price was $10.00. I put them back without making a purchase. I am not willing at this time to put out a ten spot for some drawers. I guess Greenspan is right after all, and worse yet, there is no sign of economic improvement, at least according to the undie indicators.

Maybe next week I will be in a better position to start this economic recovery. For now, I will muddle through with the 10+ year old pair of well worn comfort that I have on right now. If your in a position to do so, run out and buy some undies, the GAO (Government Accounting Office) is eagerly awaiting your input. If all the men in Ohio just went ahead and bought one pair we could at least jump start the economy in Ohio. Who knows what we could do from there.