Lickin' and Pullin'

I took my daughter and one of her friends up to King's Dominion last friday, since it was my daughter's last weekend here before going to Tampa with her mom.

It wasn't too long after we enterd when I saw this woman, who was very well endowed, wearing a T-shirt that read, "No, I don't lick myself."

"Damn." I thought. "She's no fun."

A little while later I passed a guy wearing a T-shirt that read, "Don't worry. I ALWAYS pull out."

"Touche', dude." I thought. "Touche'."

Is the Media Racist?

In today’s usatoday (online), there is an article discussing this black journalist in miami receiving threats from a white supremacist group. Turns out the supremacist group found out the journalists’ contact information and posted it on its website. This happened AFTER the journalist wrote an editorial calling the media out on how it handles race relations.

It seems this black journalist was wondering in his editorial why the media doesn’t do more to report black on white crime, and questioning the intentions of the media falling all over themselves to report instances of white on black crime. If the media is obligated by some written or unwritten morality concerning fair reporting, I think the journalist may be on to something. In fact, I applaud him for calling the media out.

Politicians fail to hold the media accountable for their reporting because they rely so heavily on the media to sport their agendas and get them elected. As I read this article, I couldn’t help but think back over the last few years and tried to remember when the media focused on anything minority based. Think about it.

They didn’t call mayor nagin out in new orleans for not using the hundreds of school buses that were eventually flooded to evacuate his people before Katrina.

They didn’t say too much about the good reverend jesse jackson and his illegitimate child(ren).
They definitely didn’t really report the details and accusations of plagiarism in Dr. Martin Luther King’s dissertation.

You don’t see anything in the media about missing black children. Or hispanic. Or chinese. Or any children if they are not white, blonde and blue eyed. Is the caucasian race the only race who’s children come up missing? Are caucasians the only ones who disappear on cruise ships?

Yeah. Yeah. You will argue the media did a good job of reporting on the O.J. Simpson trial. But think about it. If O.J. weren’t O.J., would the media have cared? And if you recall, Johnny “The Cock” Cochran alienated his white litigation team members by using the race card. That trial really became world news when they had tapes of Mark Furhman using racial slurs. All of a sudden it was whitie trying to bring O.J. down because of his success. Bullshit. All of it.

Do hispanics, or chinese, or germans, or irish, or any other nationality that makes up this country commit crimes against other races? It doesn’t appear so if you listen to the media.

The media wants you believe that whitie blew up the levies in New Orleans. It doesn’t want to report about the influx of crime committed by non-whites after Katrina.

So I think this journalist might be on to something. Maybe the media, especially with the way the media business in general is struggling to stay afloat, should take a step back and re-evaluate the way they report the news.

Maybe the American public is tired of hearing nothing but bad news and that is why they are tuning the media out.

Maybe people in general want to move forward as a populas, regardless of race. If we are screaming for non-partisan politics in Washington so the country can move forward, let’s scream just as loudly (if not louder) for non-racial relations. Let’s learn to look at each other through eyes that see the color of water.

“We the people” means just that. Not We the Whites or We the Blacks. It means We the People. But we can’t be The People until the media falls in line and makes a committed effort to not just report the news fairly, but report the news in a way that doesn’t focus or bring a negative light to a particular race.

The Don Imus fiasco is a classic example. Where was the media when Jesse Jackson referred to New York as Hymie town? Stuart Scott from ESPN admitted in ESPN The Magazine that he uses the “N” word around his “homies.” Why use it at all?

Until the leaders of the communities, black, white, red, yellow, brown, etc., can put their racial insenuations aside, We the People will continue to be We the Divided.

Is Being Fat Enough?

A lot of things happened last Friday while I was standing in line at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart, it seems, is the center of the degenerate universe. If there is ever an issue one could come up with, I am quite sure that one could find this issue in action at their local Wal-mart. For all of the good it does with low prices and such, it attracts some of the, uhh, most challenged people. Case in point.

I heard a commentary several months ago regarding the usage of those electronic carts by persons of poor health. While I understand that there are those that really NEED to use these carts, is being fat enough? At what point should an establishment draw the line as to whom they allow to use these carts?

While I was standing in the line at Wal-Mart, this seemingly healthy gentleman walked into the store with his two children. I guessed the children were in the 4-5 year old age group. He walked up to one of the cashiers complaining that there were no electronic carts. After a while, I see him motoring around in an electronic cart while his two children walked beside him.

While at Busch Gardens last week, I noticed three healthy teenagers riding around the park in these carts. Busch Gardens will argue that as long as a person pays, they don’t really care who uses the carts. But my point is by letting healthy people use the carts, it takes away from the usage possibilities of those who really NEED them. And I have no regard for the obese, so that shouldn’t be an excuse.

Obesity, as we all know it, is going to be the downfall of America, if we listen to the prognosticators. If that is the case, then I call for an all out assault on obesity by enforcing mandatory exercise programs for those diagnosed as obese by their doctors. Using these electronic carts should NOT be an option. The only way to cure obesity is to cut back on the caloric intake while exercising, burning more calories than are taken in. Thus, walking up and down the hills of Busch Gardens will do some good.

Allowing the improper usage of these carts is a sin, in my book, comparable to parking in a handicap spot. It should be policed and enforced just as harshly. Is being fat enough? Not unless it is accompanied by other medical issues that require less strenuous activity than walking around a store.

Our Educational Obligation

Once again, our country in general feels that it needs to be the “baby sitter” of the world while it is a country of insane contradictions. Let me explain.

There was an article in today’s Wall Street Journal by Miriam Jordan entitled, “At Public Schools, Immigration Raids Require New Drill.” What the article basically pointed out is that in those areas of the country where the Department of Homeland Security is stepping up its workforce enforcement by raiding plans where known illegals are working, the school system(s) have to come up with a way to “comfort” the children of those “taken away.”

Uh. Excuse me. If the children are in school, then more than likely they weren’t born here. And if they weren’t born here, they are probably not citizens. And if one or both of their parents are “taken away” due to their legal status, then that probably means that the children are in the country illegally as well. Hmmmm. This begs the question of at what point do we draw the line to determine whether we deport someone or not?

I found it quite interesting that the author highlighted Grand Island, Nebraska where a raid last year on the Swift plants in several states that netted some 1,200 illegals. It discussed the plans of the school systems, many of which were made on the fly, and how they dealt with the children of these immigrants.

In Grand Island, for example, you would think the superintendent was on the payroll of the Swift plant. Realizing the growing population of Hispanic children in his schools (42% at last count), he hired multi-lingual staff and help co-found a multi-cultural coalition of hospitals, churches, and businesses. Why? One would hope it was due to a deep seeded concern for the students. But the truth is he relied heavily on what he calls the “trusted Hispanic population” to get him voted into office. When the shit hit the fan, they had a difficult time identifying the children to some of the displaced workers because the names of the works, derived from FAKE social security cards, didn’t match the names of the parents given to the schools. Teachers, staff, social workers, etc. worked “through the night” during this crisis. And the whole point is missed.

The children are innocent bystanders. I am quite sure that they didn’t really have a say as to whether they migrated here or not. But that doesn’t really matter. They are still ILLEGAL. 42% of this town’s student population is using resources of the community, churches, schools, businesses, etc. that are funded by local tax payers. By being illegal, I am quite sure their parents are NOT paying their share of the taxes, so the resources they are using is a form of Welfare in its worst state.

Rightly so, a lot of the students in the days that followed didn’t come to school in fear that their other parent would be taken away. The parents caught up in the raid will be in jail for months awaiting trial for deportation. MONTHS? What the hell for? We know they are illegal. Let’s ship them back, plain and simple.

But because these children are, well, children, are WE obligated to educate them when our own children are being LEFT BEHIND? Are we obligated to allow the use of resources funded by the LEGAL taxpayers, yet in some states taxpayers’ children can’t participate in public school activities because they are being home schooled? At what age do we NOT consider a child illegal? Do we wait until they turn 18, graduate, then hold them accountable?

I think it’s time for America to take a step back, and really look at what the illegal immigrants are doing to our society. They are driving up taxes because of the resources they use and because they DON’T pay any. They are driving up the cost of health care because hospitals and health care providers are morally obligated to provide healthcare to everyone. They are obtaining social security cards and driver’s licenses illegally so that they can work (and not pay taxes). They are tying up the school systems that aren’t prepared for a multi-lingual student body. The city of Williamsburg, VA for example has spent in excess of 2 million dollars over the last three years “educating” this illegal immigrant accused of murder so that he will be able to stand trial. And the list goes on and on and on.

But I think our leaders are just as much to blame. Why? If they are really concerned about our illegal immigrant problem, why were over 2 million allowed to march in every major metropolitan area on May 2nd for the second year in a row, marching for more rights? Why are our leaders afraid to stand up, use the balls they were given, and say, “You are here illegaly. You were not invited. What rights should I give you? What rights do you think you deserve?”

So let me close with this. I am not against immigrants at all. Our culture is made up of a cornucopia of nationalities. But I AM against illegal immigrants who sap our resources and don’t pay their taxes. Let them become legal only after they pay restitution for all of the “freebies” they had while illegal.

A New Class of People

Economist and other financial “experts” are lamenting almost daily about the weeding out of America’s middle class. Now more than ever, they say, you have “it” or you don’t. What exactly “it” is has yet been determined, but I’m guessing they are talking about money. With rising fuel and food costs, double digit foreclosure rates in almost every state of the union, gas prices pushing $3 a gallon or more has “them” saying that we are creating a new class of poor people, consisting mainly of those who were once considered “middle class.”

While I don’t think it is fair that the minimum wage earner has to pay the same amount for gas as someone like E-bone who makes $200 an hour, I say “their” concerns are bullshit. I think that because most people are where they are financially or career wise based on their poor decision making, but that’s a topic of another day.

I think we are creating a class of people where the outlook for them is far more bleak than the new “poor.” That class of people I am talking about is a class of technology illiterate people who failed to see the digital revolution coming. Here’s my point.

In my area, Home Depot and the Wal-Mart in Hampton have installed self-checkout registers. I love those things. That means I can check out quicker, don’t have to stand in line (because most people shy away from self-checkout for some reason), and I don’t have to deal with the types of people who have those jobs. Not that there is anything wrong with them. There is always a need for cashiers, if you know what I mean.

One Farm Fresh now uses bio-metrics for checkout. If you register for it, you have your thumb print scanned, which is tied directly to your bank account or charge card. So when you check out, all you have to do is have your thumb scanned and the amount of your groceries is automatically deducted from your account.

Anheiser-Busch has implemented something similar at its theme parks in Williamsburg. When I try to enter the park(s), I place my season’s pass on this infrared reader, which reads my information from the bar code of the card. I then place my right index finger in the scanner because its print has been tied to my season’s pass information. If my print matches the information on my card, I am allowed in.

So here I stand in the self check-out line at the Hampton Wal-Mart. I watched rather impatiently as these two older women, both in those electric shopping carts, try to check out. First of all, their carts prevented them from being able to reach the products to scan them. They kept calling the attendant over to help. She finally just said “f--- it” to herself and checked them out. Once it was time to pay, they couldn’t reach the credit card scanner to scan their cards and then punch the numbers.

Second incident happened in the same line. This couple, probably early to mid-forties, was scanning their items. For the most part, it was going along smoothly when they had to call the attendant over. I’m not sure why or what was said, but I DID see that all she did to help was to press “OK” on the register screen. A few seconds later, they again had to call her over, to which she responded by once again pressing “OK.” She then had to give them a brief tutorial on how to scan their credit card, punch in the pin number, etc.

And I sat there and wondered “how sad.” So I began to pay attention every time I have gone out since then and I realize that we are surrounded by illiterates who can’t use the simplest technologies.

My in-laws have had their cell phones for almost two years and they still can’t use the voicemail.

A person I work with has a Treo. I sent a text message the other day asking her to bring lunch when she returned. When she arrived without lunch I told I had sent a text message. “what’s that?” she asked. “how do I use it?” to which my response was “how long have you had that Treo again?”

But with every great negative revelation, there is an even greater positive. This class of technology illiteracy will keep me employed for years to come. And it will always give me something to blog about!

Dealing with Death: Part I

I have never been able to deal with a loss very good.

And the older I have gotten, the worse my ability to deal has gotten, due solely to my second-by-second melancholic increase. I no longer hold things or people in contempt as much as I try to hold everything at face value, accepting otherwise unsavory characteristics as just microcosms of a much larger whole. Besides, our smallnesses make up our bignesses. At least in my world it does.

So when we stand together in front of a mighty oak and you are asked “What do you see?”, your response explains your being and how your view shapes who you are, whether you are who you THINK you are or not.

As a result, I like to think that I see the oneness in many, and the minutiae in detail, however rhetorical that sounds. I can appreciate, plain and simple. I think that is why losing this family friend has affected me far more than I like to admit, to the point of being confused as to why.

My confusion rests in this: Whether I want to admit it or not, and as much as I have tried NOT to be this way, I see my father many times when I look in the mirror. Not in a bad way, but in the way he deals and has dealt with these types of issues: from a distance; never getting too close so that it affects his outward persona. I have seen my dad cry only twice. Once was when I was 3 or 4 and his mother had died. He loved his mother, as all sons should. The second time I won’t discuss, because it is a private moment shared between just him and I; a moment that culminated 30 some odd years of striving to hear the words “I am proud of you” from an otherwise non-emotional, non-attached, non-responsive person. But he’s my hero…………..still………..

My confusion as to how to deal with this is caught in the crossfire of letting my emotions run amok and riding my horse into the sunset in my best Marlboro Man (MM) impersonation. I am confused because I am not alone, ala the MM, yet is it un-MMly to cry, to feel, to expunge the hurt and pain I feel for the immediate family and for MQ? Should tears flow freely, unabashed by the preconceived (often mis-) conceptions that society places on the do’s and don’ts of gender specific events? Can I still be strong for MQ if my emotions ebb and flow like the tides?

I say YES, profoundly……KMA if you don’t agree

Dealing with Death: Part II

We had known for months that she was dying. In fact, she had been telling MQ for over a year that she felt like she was dying. I guess if one were to get technical about it, we all feel like we are dying because that’s the largest part of living. But we have known since March or April that she was dying for sure.

In her quest to lose weight over the years, she had had two gastric bypass surgeries with the second one being a lot more “radical”, as the doctor put it, than the first. Over the years, her body didn’t receive the nutrition it needed to survive. The long term effects were her liver, and other organs, started shutting down. In fact, her liver shutdown had progressed so far by the time it was caught it was determined that a transplant would do her no good. It wouldn’t help because her other body parts had suffered so much damage that they would continue to shutdown regardless if she had a new liver or not. So she was told to basically go home and get her affairs in order. 1-2 years, they said.

54 days ago, after a brief stay in the hospital (I can’t remember the reason), she was sent home to die thinking she had 7-10 days left. 54 days later, on June 12th, 2007 at 3:38 pm, she passed peacefully in her sleep. Her heart had kept her going long after she should have died. She was wrapped in a robe that her mother had made her before SHE died 14 years ago. After being wrapped in that robe, a calm and peaceful smile came over her face, a fitting end to an otherwise un-necessary (depending on whom you ask) bout of suffering. She was home now. She was with her mother, where she had wanted to be all along.

I was in a meeting when MQ called. I ignored the call because she had always told me that if it were an emergency she would call Martha and have her come get me. When she called right back, I knew what the call was. My fears were confirmed when I answered to a hurting, sobbing wife whom I have adored forever it seems. My entire being went out to MQ because she had lost her best friend in the whole world.

MQ had spent time with her friend every single day since she arrived home from the hospital. To say that they were close is a grave understatement. I can’t even imagine the pain and the grief that MQ was going through. All I know was that I wanted to be there and hold her, and reassure her that I was here for her. I left work to show her just that.

The traffic down 17 was unusually light for that time of the day. But the drive to “the house” was long. I turned off the radio to drive in peace. My mind wondered all over the place, yet settled where it usually does: to a Sunday afternoon 20 years ago in November when I found my first sand dollar at Virginia Beach. I promptly mailed it to my yet-to-be-born daughter, Rebecca. I miss her, yet have never seen her………………

I pulled up to the house and there were many cars. I parked at the end of the line of cars, naturally, and walked through the yard.

As I walked under the willow tree, I saw her: MQ. She was hurting, but she was as beautiful as the afternoon sun. She didn’t see me until I was past the tree. I swear, it was the most emotional yet romantic “scene” I have ever experienced.

When she saw me, she stood there in disbelief with her hands over her tear stained cheeks. She started to cry and opened her arms to me in a way she has never done. I never took my eyes off of her as I walked to her and into her arms. We fell into each other and I held her tightly as she cried, sobbed, in grief. It literally broke my heart to see her that way, and I cried too. I held her and held her, relishing how something as tragic as this loss was slowly pulling us closer to where we were during that “first week.”

I then had an epiphany: everything we had been working toward and struggling through and laughing at and crying over was now non-essential. We had crossed that bridge a lot of couples never get to, the bridge of acceptance and understanding of exactly what we had. It was then, in those few seconds, when our love was sealed and our relationship was now cemented in our mutual grief over our friend and in our undying need for each other. I need her in my life…………….she IS my life.

I paid my condolences to the daughter and to the husband. I looked at our friend and I remembered exactly why I hadn’t been going up there to see her through this ordeal: I wanted to remember her as the person who went with us to Nags Head last year, not as the discolored, long suffering, pruned up person I saw. “It wasn’t her” I have to keep reminding myself.

After leaving, my thoughts turned to disbelief that she was gone, and I became sad. Not because of the loss, but because the world that she was such a part of for 49 years was moving forward. It didn’t care that we were all grieving our loss. It didn’t care that her husband is a widower at 50, or that she will never get to fully experience the life in store for her 16 year old daughter. And that’s sad.

We live our lives often thinking we are more than what we are, or we live it unsatisfied with our blessings, always wanting and asking for more than we really need. We fall into this false sense of security thinking the world will be there for us, and care for us, and will help us through our trials and tribulations. We don’t see, feel, or experience the world for what it really is until we have lost someone we loved. For we can’t understand why the world doesn’t love the way we love. We can’t understand why people still go to work and children still go to school when we are imprisoned by a seemingly overbearing grief.

And we often become cynical to the world that feeds us, not ever really understanding how it moves forward when we are at a self-imposed standstill. That’s what’s hard now. The acceptance of death has come. But non-understanding has reared its ugly head as well: How can one be allowed to suffer so long? How come we are never really prepared, even when we have had time to prepare? How come…………………….

So here it is 11:22, some 32 hours after she died. I am downstairs, alone with the cat, while MQ rests peacefully with a suddenly sick FUTURE (son, for those of you who don’t follow this blog). I have once again tapped my bottle of Bombay Sapphire, and am contemplating yet another, trying to find a way to end this diatribe. But maybe, just maybe, I should put away my inkling to try to write the All-American ending and let this end like life ends: suddenly, with absolutely no understanding of what just happened.

Dealing with Death: Epilogue

MQ woke up this morning with a massive headache. She decided to go into work late. I drove the kids to school. We celebrated school being out tomorrow by stopping by Dunkin Donuts.

On the way to school, it started to rain pretty hard. I thought about the weather forecast I had just watched before leaving the house: no mention of rain. I thought this was odd.

But then I remembered something someone said when Chet died and it rained: GOD always cries when someone special dies…..