I remember reading a little while ago that some experts think Twitter has "peaked;" that is, the number of new people joining for the first time has leveled off. We're not sure exactly what this means, but maybe the once-darling of the brave new world of "social networking" is not as popular as it once was. Facebook, on the other hand, is going gangbusters in its drive to take over the entire planet. They just passed 500 million members, which is like the entire population of the United States, Japan and a couple of other countries combined. Someone said recently that if their growth continues at its present rate, everyone who is on the Internet will also be on Facebook by 2012.
That is pretty astonishing when you think about it. What makes Facebook so much more appealing than Twitter? Facebook's content is of course much richer than Twitter, with pictures and millions of other applications available. Twitter is just text, but with the immediacy of instantaneous posting, although Facebook is not that far behind. Facebook is not limited to 140 characters per entry, so a much richer, detailed experience is allowed. Although that is not always a good thing.
I admit to not being a fan of Twitter. I tried it once and found it a horrendous, ridiculous waste of time. My life is just not that interesting that I feel the need to post endlessly about the minutiae with which I deal. What is it that I need to tell my friends on such a critical basis? "The sky is blue today!" - check, got that. "Rabbit took a dump in her cage, missed the litterbox by three inches." - That's lovely, I'm sure people need to hear that. "It's a 112 degrees today." - wow, some things are best left ignored. To be fair, Facebook can also get cluttered by random, meaningless observations, and sometimes people reveal an amazing amount of information about their private lives that would definitely be better left private.
But the other day I let my imagination run free (I know, historically not the best thing to do, but bear with me here) and tried to think what some of the prominent figures of history would have Tweeted had there been the internet and Twitter around. Here, then, are some of history's famous events, served up in concise, 140-or-fewer-character info-nuggets:
@abelincoln: "I just want to stay home and soak my feet, but the missus wants to see some dumb play at the Ford. Whatevs."
@georgewashington: "They want to name that city on the Potomac after me. are they kidding me? that sh*thole is a swamp. after all I've done for them, f**king ingrates!"
@galileo: "New telescope's great! watched the mayor's wife get ready for a bath Yowza! moon is full of holes, looks like crap, nothing interesting there."
@kinghenryVIII: "Just got rid of #5, or was it #6? Don't know, can't keep track any more. If this marriage thing doesn't work again, I'm going gay."
@leonardodavinci: "Jeez, can't wait to finish this painting. I hate doing portraits and this Mona Lisa chick is creeping me out with her weird smile."
@cleopatra: "OMG! Marc Antony is a hottie. Julie Caesar called me Queen of Denial, WTF? Out of eye shadow again, LOL!"
@michaelangelo: "Jesus Christmas my back is killing me. last time I do a chapel ceiling. will paint a couple more naked people and call it a day!"
@darthvader: "Kids can be a bummer, tried to talk to Luke yesterday and he pulled a saber on me, wtf? This helmet gives me a headache."
@chriscolumbus: "Been sailing west for weeks now. better see some chinese guys in silk suits soon or else my ass is grass back in Genoa."
@kinglouieXVI: "What's a guy gotta do to have some fun around here? Itching powder in the queen's knickers again?"
@GOD: "I am so done with these damned people, same stupid stuff over and over again. Should have stopped with animals and left well enough alone!"
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Stupidest State Contest - Midyear Update
The race for 2010's Stupidest State award has been a nail-biter, even at the 6-month mark. Let's take a look at the field of competitors and see if we will have any breakthroughs in the quest for this coveted, prestigious award. But first, a word or two about the competition itself:
The Stupidest State award is given each year to one of the 50 United States (Guam and Puerto Rico don't count because they are in their own category of stupid) that has shown a staggering, mind-boggling level of idiocy in a whole array of objectionable and completely subjective measurements. These measurements are:
1) General level of innate stupidity among residents. This is when stupidity is the result of some large-scale genetic abnormality or environmental catastrophe which automatically dooms everyone in that state to a profound level of dopiness. It also includes some kind of cultural mandate or a completely degraded educational system, which will guarantee that even if you're born with normal intelligence, you will grow up really dumb no matter what. Example: Texas.
2) Venal, corrupt or insane governor/executive branch. When the head honcho of state government is a classless, raving idiot (don't try to hide, Rod Blagojevich, we see you) it's tough for a state to get out from under that. Unless the state legislature has the intelligence, integrity and morality to force the governor into taking the right actions. HAHAHAHA! Example: Illinois.
3) Prevailing religious tyranny. When a state is influenced in every aspect by a toxic, malignant religious mind-control cult, you can be sure that everything they do will be completely idiotic and counter to any kind of common sense. Example: Utah
4) Batshit-crazy or fundamentalist-controlled regulators or legislature. Regulators and legislators at the state level exercise a frightening amount of control over the lives of the residents and can enforce a dense haze of stupidity which blankets the entire state. This can lead to the passage of stunningly stupid laws and/or denial of the theory of evolution, global warming or a million other issues which everyone learns in the third grade and which normal people around the world regard as valid and serious. Example: Kansas
5) Potential for global embarrassment or species degradation. Often a state will collectively reach a level of idiocy that everyone on earth notices and leads to that state being held up as an universal example of the very worst qualities of humanity. In fact the entire human race is negatively affected by the overwhelming, blinding stupidity of this one group of people. Examples: Alabama, Mississippi
So, with the categories in mind, let's take a look (in alphabetical order) at the slate of contenders we have in the running for 2010's Stupidest State, and their current ratings on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being mildly annoying dumbness and 5 being poisonous, terminal stupidity:
ALASKA: There are some states that you can expect to be in the competition every year, such is the depth and breadth of their inborn, ingrained dumbness. Alaska certainly qualifies on its own merits, but its level of stupid has been catapulted to stratospheric levels by its most prominent citizen, the execrable Sarah Palin. Absolutely everything that comes out of this wretched, ignorant woman's trap is light-years beyond stupid and pathetic. It's as if profound mental retardation has become something to be celebrated and publicized. Hailing from Wasilla - "Where you can smell the stupid in the air" - Palin's continued blight of an existence will ensure that Alaska always has a place near the top of this competition.
Scorecard:
General level of stupid in the population: 4 (They have to be stupid to elect Palin)
Really stupid governor/executive: 2 (Palin is ex-governor)
Prevailing religious tyranny: 1 (Worshiping polar bears is not a religion)
Batshit-crazy legislature: 2 (I'm sure they are, but at least they're quiet)
Potential for global embarrassment: 5
Overall Score: 2.8
ARIZONA: I suppose I should be ashamed that my adoptive home state is in the running, but how can I possibly deny it? After being here for 17 years I am still amazed and confounded by how incredibly stupid and ignorant this state is. First of all I am continually appalled by the number of really disgusting dirtbags, meth-heads and general burn-outs that populate this state. Arizona really is the septic tank for the entire nation; every rabid redneck and drug burn-out case find their way here after they are thrown out of their own state. When they're not stealing copper tubing to feed their substance-abuse habit, some of these scumbags vote and this results in the most unqualified, corrupt and just plain evil people being elected to every single office in this state, from the governor to the state legislature and on down the line to local sheriffs and city council members. This also means you can absolutely count on the legislature to pass the most deadheaded, moronic laws possible, such as the law to allow bar patrons to carry guns and illegal-immigration bill SB 1070, currently embroiling this state in the most destructive, divisive debate ever.
Scorecard:
General level of stupid in the population: 5
Really stupid governor/executive: 5 (Governor-without-a-mandate Jan Brewer is possibly the most incompetent, stupid and just plain loathsome governor since Fife Symington)
Prevailing religious tyranny: 1 (Would be 5 if stupidity was a religion)
Batshit-crazy legislature: 5
Potential for global embarrassment: 4
Overall Score: 4.0
FLORIDA: Another state we can count on being in the competition every year is Florida, the Great-Granddaddy of Crazy. Florida has been batshit-crazy longer than anyone can remember. I guess all the crazy old people from all over the country move down there, and that just makes everything crazier. It's recent selection of governors (Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist) make it clear that the populace has a keen eye for the really stupid and gleefully vote the Crazy Ticket each and every time. Whether passing laws to deny adoption privileges to perfectly fine, qualified gay couples, or blaming the last hurricane on the lack of prayer in public schools, Floridians have shown a level of stupidity and staying-power which is truly world-class.
Scorecard:
General level of stupid in the population: 4
Really stupid governor/executive: 4
Prevailing religious tyranny: 3 (Way too many Southern Baptists)
Batshit-crazy legislature: 4
Potential for global embarrassment: 4
Overall Score: 3.8
NEW JERSEY: Sad little New Jersey hasn't been in the running for a while, not since The Sopranos finished up, but unfortunately for them the recent elevation of "guido culture" in the form of an astonishingly awful reality show Jersey Shore has popped them back into the contest. This has rocketed the perception of New Jersey residents as a bunch of really annoying buffoons. Now everyone in the world thinks the state is overrun by short, stubby women with enormous fake boobs and an exaggerated sense of their own self-worth, and meat-headed men with the brains and maturity level of foul-mouthed ten-year-olds. Even worse, some of these Jersey Shore people weren't even from New Jersey - they were from New York - but that doesn't matter, New Jersey gets the blame for these idiots.
Scorecard:
General level of stupid in the population: 3 (5 near the ocean or in Atlantic City)
Really stupid governor/executive: 0 (I don't even know who the governor is)
Prevailing religious tyranny: 2 (Overly-teased hair and obnoxious accents don't really count as religion)
Batshit-crazy legislature: 2
Potential for global embarrassment: 5
Overall Score: 2.2
SOUTH CAROLINA: This is so exciting, because every so often a new state will pop up in the contest, seemingly out of nowhere. South Carolina had been previously written off as a huge parking lot/trash dump for North Carolina and a support system for moderately interesting places like Myrtle Beach and Charleston. But they have shown a dazzling talent for pure idiocy in a very short time. Their breathtaking rise to the top of the stupid heap started with their hormone-driven ex-governor Mark Sanford who deftly combined a talent for lying and cheating on his wife when he told everyone he went hiking in the Appalachians and instead took a detour way south to go bump nasties with some Argentine strumpet. Then he had the audacity to come back, tail between his legs, and wonder why everyone wanted him to step down from the governorship. Those are some balls you got (or had) there, Mr. Sanford. Then there is Senator Jim Demint, who would love to make kissy-face with all those ignorant racists in the Tea Party and who has never passed up a single opportunity to advance the wishes of his wealthy Republican puppet-masters. And there's much more, but I'll just throw in the little tidbit about South Carolina being the home of Bob Jones University. Look them up, you will be appalled.
Scorecard:
General level of stupid in the population: 5 (There has to be very high lead levels in the water)
Really stupid governor/executive: 5
Prevailing religious tyranny: 5 (Fundamentalist heaven)
Batshit-crazy legislature: 4
Potential for global embarrassment: 5
Overall Score: 4.8
Well, there you have it, the race so far. Alaska and Florida are hanging in there strong, perennial competitors that they are. Arizona is making a full-court press and is a force with which to be reckoned. New Jersey is being dragged into the competition somewhat reluctantly but that's okay, and South Carolina is making an amazingly strong bid for Stupid Supremacy. It will be an interesting time now through the end of the year as the midterm elections come up, and we should always be alert for a state to swoop in out of the blue with a level of stupidity that will dwarf anything we've seen so far. Isn't life grand?
The Stupidest State award is given each year to one of the 50 United States (Guam and Puerto Rico don't count because they are in their own category of stupid) that has shown a staggering, mind-boggling level of idiocy in a whole array of objectionable and completely subjective measurements. These measurements are:
1) General level of innate stupidity among residents. This is when stupidity is the result of some large-scale genetic abnormality or environmental catastrophe which automatically dooms everyone in that state to a profound level of dopiness. It also includes some kind of cultural mandate or a completely degraded educational system, which will guarantee that even if you're born with normal intelligence, you will grow up really dumb no matter what. Example: Texas.
2) Venal, corrupt or insane governor/executive branch. When the head honcho of state government is a classless, raving idiot (don't try to hide, Rod Blagojevich, we see you) it's tough for a state to get out from under that. Unless the state legislature has the intelligence, integrity and morality to force the governor into taking the right actions. HAHAHAHA! Example: Illinois.
3) Prevailing religious tyranny. When a state is influenced in every aspect by a toxic, malignant religious mind-control cult, you can be sure that everything they do will be completely idiotic and counter to any kind of common sense. Example: Utah
4) Batshit-crazy or fundamentalist-controlled regulators or legislature. Regulators and legislators at the state level exercise a frightening amount of control over the lives of the residents and can enforce a dense haze of stupidity which blankets the entire state. This can lead to the passage of stunningly stupid laws and/or denial of the theory of evolution, global warming or a million other issues which everyone learns in the third grade and which normal people around the world regard as valid and serious. Example: Kansas
5) Potential for global embarrassment or species degradation. Often a state will collectively reach a level of idiocy that everyone on earth notices and leads to that state being held up as an universal example of the very worst qualities of humanity. In fact the entire human race is negatively affected by the overwhelming, blinding stupidity of this one group of people. Examples: Alabama, Mississippi
So, with the categories in mind, let's take a look (in alphabetical order) at the slate of contenders we have in the running for 2010's Stupidest State, and their current ratings on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being mildly annoying dumbness and 5 being poisonous, terminal stupidity:
ALASKA: There are some states that you can expect to be in the competition every year, such is the depth and breadth of their inborn, ingrained dumbness. Alaska certainly qualifies on its own merits, but its level of stupid has been catapulted to stratospheric levels by its most prominent citizen, the execrable Sarah Palin. Absolutely everything that comes out of this wretched, ignorant woman's trap is light-years beyond stupid and pathetic. It's as if profound mental retardation has become something to be celebrated and publicized. Hailing from Wasilla - "Where you can smell the stupid in the air" - Palin's continued blight of an existence will ensure that Alaska always has a place near the top of this competition.
Scorecard:
General level of stupid in the population: 4 (They have to be stupid to elect Palin)
Really stupid governor/executive: 2 (Palin is ex-governor)
Prevailing religious tyranny: 1 (Worshiping polar bears is not a religion)
Batshit-crazy legislature: 2 (I'm sure they are, but at least they're quiet)
Potential for global embarrassment: 5
Overall Score: 2.8
ARIZONA: I suppose I should be ashamed that my adoptive home state is in the running, but how can I possibly deny it? After being here for 17 years I am still amazed and confounded by how incredibly stupid and ignorant this state is. First of all I am continually appalled by the number of really disgusting dirtbags, meth-heads and general burn-outs that populate this state. Arizona really is the septic tank for the entire nation; every rabid redneck and drug burn-out case find their way here after they are thrown out of their own state. When they're not stealing copper tubing to feed their substance-abuse habit, some of these scumbags vote and this results in the most unqualified, corrupt and just plain evil people being elected to every single office in this state, from the governor to the state legislature and on down the line to local sheriffs and city council members. This also means you can absolutely count on the legislature to pass the most deadheaded, moronic laws possible, such as the law to allow bar patrons to carry guns and illegal-immigration bill SB 1070, currently embroiling this state in the most destructive, divisive debate ever.
Scorecard:
General level of stupid in the population: 5
Really stupid governor/executive: 5 (Governor-without-a-mandate Jan Brewer is possibly the most incompetent, stupid and just plain loathsome governor since Fife Symington)
Prevailing religious tyranny: 1 (Would be 5 if stupidity was a religion)
Batshit-crazy legislature: 5
Potential for global embarrassment: 4
Overall Score: 4.0
FLORIDA: Another state we can count on being in the competition every year is Florida, the Great-Granddaddy of Crazy. Florida has been batshit-crazy longer than anyone can remember. I guess all the crazy old people from all over the country move down there, and that just makes everything crazier. It's recent selection of governors (Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist) make it clear that the populace has a keen eye for the really stupid and gleefully vote the Crazy Ticket each and every time. Whether passing laws to deny adoption privileges to perfectly fine, qualified gay couples, or blaming the last hurricane on the lack of prayer in public schools, Floridians have shown a level of stupidity and staying-power which is truly world-class.
Scorecard:
General level of stupid in the population: 4
Really stupid governor/executive: 4
Prevailing religious tyranny: 3 (Way too many Southern Baptists)
Batshit-crazy legislature: 4
Potential for global embarrassment: 4
Overall Score: 3.8
NEW JERSEY: Sad little New Jersey hasn't been in the running for a while, not since The Sopranos finished up, but unfortunately for them the recent elevation of "guido culture" in the form of an astonishingly awful reality show Jersey Shore has popped them back into the contest. This has rocketed the perception of New Jersey residents as a bunch of really annoying buffoons. Now everyone in the world thinks the state is overrun by short, stubby women with enormous fake boobs and an exaggerated sense of their own self-worth, and meat-headed men with the brains and maturity level of foul-mouthed ten-year-olds. Even worse, some of these Jersey Shore people weren't even from New Jersey - they were from New York - but that doesn't matter, New Jersey gets the blame for these idiots.
Scorecard:
General level of stupid in the population: 3 (5 near the ocean or in Atlantic City)
Really stupid governor/executive: 0 (I don't even know who the governor is)
Prevailing religious tyranny: 2 (Overly-teased hair and obnoxious accents don't really count as religion)
Batshit-crazy legislature: 2
Potential for global embarrassment: 5
Overall Score: 2.2
SOUTH CAROLINA: This is so exciting, because every so often a new state will pop up in the contest, seemingly out of nowhere. South Carolina had been previously written off as a huge parking lot/trash dump for North Carolina and a support system for moderately interesting places like Myrtle Beach and Charleston. But they have shown a dazzling talent for pure idiocy in a very short time. Their breathtaking rise to the top of the stupid heap started with their hormone-driven ex-governor Mark Sanford who deftly combined a talent for lying and cheating on his wife when he told everyone he went hiking in the Appalachians and instead took a detour way south to go bump nasties with some Argentine strumpet. Then he had the audacity to come back, tail between his legs, and wonder why everyone wanted him to step down from the governorship. Those are some balls you got (or had) there, Mr. Sanford. Then there is Senator Jim Demint, who would love to make kissy-face with all those ignorant racists in the Tea Party and who has never passed up a single opportunity to advance the wishes of his wealthy Republican puppet-masters. And there's much more, but I'll just throw in the little tidbit about South Carolina being the home of Bob Jones University. Look them up, you will be appalled.
Scorecard:
General level of stupid in the population: 5 (There has to be very high lead levels in the water)
Really stupid governor/executive: 5
Prevailing religious tyranny: 5 (Fundamentalist heaven)
Batshit-crazy legislature: 4
Potential for global embarrassment: 5
Overall Score: 4.8
Well, there you have it, the race so far. Alaska and Florida are hanging in there strong, perennial competitors that they are. Arizona is making a full-court press and is a force with which to be reckoned. New Jersey is being dragged into the competition somewhat reluctantly but that's okay, and South Carolina is making an amazingly strong bid for Stupid Supremacy. It will be an interesting time now through the end of the year as the midterm elections come up, and we should always be alert for a state to swoop in out of the blue with a level of stupidity that will dwarf anything we've seen so far. Isn't life grand?
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Suck It, Cleveland
There certainly has been a lot of publicity in the world of professional basketball regarding one Lebron James leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and going over to the Miami Heat. You would think that God came down to the Vatican and told them, "Listen, I'm done with you people and I'm not your God anymore. I'm becoming a Buddhist." The announcement brought a lot of weeping and wailing and rending of garments (literally - there were lots of videos of people ripping apart Lebron James tee-shirts and actually setting them on fire) from the benighted residents of the Mistake on the Lake (as Lake Erie-hugging Cleveland is sometimes unkindly called). But what does this very public NBA beat-down of Cleveland really mean in the long view?
I will gladly admit that I am probably one of the least sports-oriented people on the planet. I think all sports are a complete waste of time and a really frivolous and unproductive way to let your life slip away. I realize it's all just entertainment, and I see very little difference between the Big Three sports (baseball, football and basketball) and professional wresting, something at which everyone finds justifiable to sneer and regard as a vulgar, down-market, lowest-common-denominator pastime for the unwashed masses who live in trailer parks by the railroad tracks. So the James ship-jumping didn't even register on my radar. I ranked it alongside or just a little below the latest panty-free romp by some trashy D-list Hollywood celebutard or Sarah Palin's most recent bout of intellectual diarrhea. But to a lot of people this was an earth-shaking event which took on a life and importance usually reserved for terrorist attacks or medical breakthroughs.
I can see how this could be reasonably important to the two cities involved, and also for the couple of other towns that tried to lure James to their teams. Looking a little bit below the surface you see this mostly revolves around money. Lebron James is a major draw for the sport, much as disgraced Ambien enthusiast Tiger Woods is to golf. James certainly puts butts in seats for the games in which he plays, and that translates into elevated ticket sales and corollary expenditures like paper cups of warm beer and hot dogs that have been boiling in a gigantic pot since Memorial Day. Throw in other taxable merchandise such as shirts, coffee mugs and bobble-heads, and you've got a tidy little revenue stream for whichever city can lay claim to being the fiefdom of King James.
But there are two things that I apparently never got the memo on regarding professional sports. One is the enormous disconnect I perceive between what pro athletes are paid and what their services seem to be worth. Does Lebron James, or any athlete for that matter, deserve an eight-figure salary for working only part of the year doing what most people regard as a game? As far as I'm concerned, and I've said this at least one other time in this blog, any police officer, teacher, nurse or firefighter anywhere in this country performs a more valuable service in one day than Mr. James or Mr. Woods or any other athlete performs in their entire career. But this is what I call (somewhat melodramatically, I admit) the "poisoned fruit" of our capitalistic economy; that is, you will get paid according to the demand for your services, not their intrinsic worth.
The other thing I don't "get" is the emotional connection that fans like to imagine exists between a professional sports team and whatever city they are playing for at the moment. Fans in Cleveland took Lebron James' decision to bolt as a personal insult of the highest magnitude. Plenty of them seemed deeply distressed and offended, as if the honor and virtue of their mother was very publicly questioned. You can see the flip side of that outrage when a team wins a very critical game or a title - fans go berserk and rampage the streets, flashing their "number one" finger at the news cameras and somehow interpreting the outcome as a major accomplishment on their part. People, listen to me: they are professional athletes. They are play-for-pay, and they could care less if their paycheck comes from Cleveland or Miami or Phoenix or Boston or Los Angeles. Their fan base is nothing but a monolithic, faceless cash machine to them. Thus, one day Lebron James can be the shining light of Cleveland, worshiped by hundreds of thousands of residents, and the next day he is reviled and cursed as a modern-day Benedict Arnold times a thousand, and his images are being ripped down all over the Cleveland area. If all that love, hero-worship and emotional attachment is real, how can it be turned on its ear in a second?
Interestingly, the general manager, I guess, of the Cleveland Cavs really jumped the rails when he lambasted James on an official website in very strong, colorful terms as the perpetrator of some horrendous, unforgivable crime against his adopted home town. Realizing that James bailed on the team because he considered his chances for bringing home an NBA title better down South Beach way, the manager blurted out a public promise to the Cleveland fans that he will "personally guarantee" them an NBA title next season. Whoa, over-promising a little there, dude? Let's do the math on that one, shall we:
1) The Cleveland Cavaliers did not secure a title this year +
2) Their super-star player will not be with them anymore. =
3) NBA championship next season? NOT LIKELY.
Cleveland has been one of those hard-scrabble, rust-belt cities who have been gleefully trashed on a regular basis for decades, if not centuries, by the rest of the country. Sure, the city is run-down and dirty and a pale shell of its former glory, but what older U.S. city east of the Mississippi isn't? I lived in Cleveland for three years while attending college, and it's really not that bad a place. Faint praise, I realize, but I'm doing my best here. I can see how the long-suffering, perennially ragged-on hometown fans kind of snapped whenever their star player bolted from lovely Cuyahoga county. But in the grand scheme of things, residents of Cleveland should not pin their sense of self-worth, or the worth of their city, on the money-driven choices of a professional athlete. Maybe they should have taken the high road, wished James luck in dealing with those horrendous palmetto bugs and the alligators that will be sauntering across his lawn, and turned their attention to making their team and their city as good as they can be. Screaming and cursing and banging your head against a wall is not the way to go. It's bad for the wall, and it earns you nothing but a headache.
I will gladly admit that I am probably one of the least sports-oriented people on the planet. I think all sports are a complete waste of time and a really frivolous and unproductive way to let your life slip away. I realize it's all just entertainment, and I see very little difference between the Big Three sports (baseball, football and basketball) and professional wresting, something at which everyone finds justifiable to sneer and regard as a vulgar, down-market, lowest-common-denominator pastime for the unwashed masses who live in trailer parks by the railroad tracks. So the James ship-jumping didn't even register on my radar. I ranked it alongside or just a little below the latest panty-free romp by some trashy D-list Hollywood celebutard or Sarah Palin's most recent bout of intellectual diarrhea. But to a lot of people this was an earth-shaking event which took on a life and importance usually reserved for terrorist attacks or medical breakthroughs.
I can see how this could be reasonably important to the two cities involved, and also for the couple of other towns that tried to lure James to their teams. Looking a little bit below the surface you see this mostly revolves around money. Lebron James is a major draw for the sport, much as disgraced Ambien enthusiast Tiger Woods is to golf. James certainly puts butts in seats for the games in which he plays, and that translates into elevated ticket sales and corollary expenditures like paper cups of warm beer and hot dogs that have been boiling in a gigantic pot since Memorial Day. Throw in other taxable merchandise such as shirts, coffee mugs and bobble-heads, and you've got a tidy little revenue stream for whichever city can lay claim to being the fiefdom of King James.
But there are two things that I apparently never got the memo on regarding professional sports. One is the enormous disconnect I perceive between what pro athletes are paid and what their services seem to be worth. Does Lebron James, or any athlete for that matter, deserve an eight-figure salary for working only part of the year doing what most people regard as a game? As far as I'm concerned, and I've said this at least one other time in this blog, any police officer, teacher, nurse or firefighter anywhere in this country performs a more valuable service in one day than Mr. James or Mr. Woods or any other athlete performs in their entire career. But this is what I call (somewhat melodramatically, I admit) the "poisoned fruit" of our capitalistic economy; that is, you will get paid according to the demand for your services, not their intrinsic worth.
The other thing I don't "get" is the emotional connection that fans like to imagine exists between a professional sports team and whatever city they are playing for at the moment. Fans in Cleveland took Lebron James' decision to bolt as a personal insult of the highest magnitude. Plenty of them seemed deeply distressed and offended, as if the honor and virtue of their mother was very publicly questioned. You can see the flip side of that outrage when a team wins a very critical game or a title - fans go berserk and rampage the streets, flashing their "number one" finger at the news cameras and somehow interpreting the outcome as a major accomplishment on their part. People, listen to me: they are professional athletes. They are play-for-pay, and they could care less if their paycheck comes from Cleveland or Miami or Phoenix or Boston or Los Angeles. Their fan base is nothing but a monolithic, faceless cash machine to them. Thus, one day Lebron James can be the shining light of Cleveland, worshiped by hundreds of thousands of residents, and the next day he is reviled and cursed as a modern-day Benedict Arnold times a thousand, and his images are being ripped down all over the Cleveland area. If all that love, hero-worship and emotional attachment is real, how can it be turned on its ear in a second?
Interestingly, the general manager, I guess, of the Cleveland Cavs really jumped the rails when he lambasted James on an official website in very strong, colorful terms as the perpetrator of some horrendous, unforgivable crime against his adopted home town. Realizing that James bailed on the team because he considered his chances for bringing home an NBA title better down South Beach way, the manager blurted out a public promise to the Cleveland fans that he will "personally guarantee" them an NBA title next season. Whoa, over-promising a little there, dude? Let's do the math on that one, shall we:
1) The Cleveland Cavaliers did not secure a title this year +
2) Their super-star player will not be with them anymore. =
3) NBA championship next season? NOT LIKELY.
Cleveland has been one of those hard-scrabble, rust-belt cities who have been gleefully trashed on a regular basis for decades, if not centuries, by the rest of the country. Sure, the city is run-down and dirty and a pale shell of its former glory, but what older U.S. city east of the Mississippi isn't? I lived in Cleveland for three years while attending college, and it's really not that bad a place. Faint praise, I realize, but I'm doing my best here. I can see how the long-suffering, perennially ragged-on hometown fans kind of snapped whenever their star player bolted from lovely Cuyahoga county. But in the grand scheme of things, residents of Cleveland should not pin their sense of self-worth, or the worth of their city, on the money-driven choices of a professional athlete. Maybe they should have taken the high road, wished James luck in dealing with those horrendous palmetto bugs and the alligators that will be sauntering across his lawn, and turned their attention to making their team and their city as good as they can be. Screaming and cursing and banging your head against a wall is not the way to go. It's bad for the wall, and it earns you nothing but a headache.
Monday, July 5, 2010
After the Fourth
Well, we got through another Fourth of July here in our little corner of paradise. We kind of lucked out this time, because it was sunny, clear and not blindingly hot. Of course the Phoenix version of "not blindingly hot" would cause widespread anxiety in most other parts of the country. We were actually a couple of degrees cooler than average - 104 degrees instead of 107 - but we will take any kind of "cooler" we can get. In most other parts of the country Independence Day sort of marks a half-way point through the summer season. But since we are graced with summertime temperatures through the first half of October, July 4th represents about one third down, two thirds yet to go.
We desert dwellers are now looking to the skies to bring us some relief in the form of the oft-promised but just as often missing-in-action monsoon storms. We get giddy with anticipation around midday as we watch the cumulus clouds pile up in massive, custard-like heaps in the northeast, hoping that later in the afternoon we will be treated to huge, torrential downpours and intense winds. In quite a few cases, all this drama and expectation is nothing but a big tease as storms pop all around us, but avoid the Valley of the Sun as if it were a big leper colony.
It's day 77 of the Gulf oil spill and the undersea well is still blowing oil into the water. It seems barely possible that this can continue for so long, and one wonders where all those millions and millions of gallons of crude oil are going. You can tell that news fatigue is starting to set in - the oil spill gets relegated to a spot on the news programs after the annual hot-dog eating contest and the latest professional athlete signing some preposterous, obscene gazillion-dollar contract.
By the way, is there anything as loathsome and disgusting as an eating contest? I am completely baffled why there is such interest in a bunch of repellent, gluttonous pigs cramming food down their gullets, like some kind of weird post-apocalyptic update of an ancient Roman food orgy. I can only hope that the participants come down with a terminal case of crapulence. Yes, there is such a word as "crapulence." It means "sickness caused by excessive eating or drinking." It's in the dictionary, check it out here. It's like the Word God made up a word as a gift for me. It's much classier than the more colloquial "craptacular." I plan on using words like "crapulent" and "flatulent" in conversation and correspondence as often as I can.
On the immigration front, we had someone named Barry Wong, who is a candidate for the Arizona Corporation Commission, the governing body that controls utility rates, come up with a rather incredible idea of cutting off electrical power to illegal immigrants. This idea is breath-taking in its insanity and can probably make its own run for the most half-baked, ridiculous idea of the year. How this proposed law could implemented and enforced, Mr. Wong did not deign to explain, but in an area where the temperatures can reach 115 degrees or higher it this would be tantamount to murder. Also, you would have to know where all the illegal immigrants live before you can start cutting power, and most people here illegally go to a lot of trouble to keep that information from the authorities. I fail to see how the whole immigration debate is advanced by this kind of demented logic, but maybe it works as comic relief, in a pathetic kind of way.
Way to go, Cox Communications, for giving me a brand-new cable modem when my old one stopped working last Thursday night. Oh, I should point out that Cox decided they weren't going to support my old modem due to changes in their network, so when I called and complained about my high-speed internet service going away, they said it was my problem and I need to buy a new modem. They very graciously offered to sell me a new modem for the "discounted price of $39.99." I told them they can shove their discounted price up their discounted butts and started up the corporate ladder on Friday morning. After about an hour complaining they relented and delivered a shiny, brand-new Motorola modem to my house. So they get points for a good resolution but they also lose points because I had to force them to do the right thing. The lesson in all this, kids, is the squeaky wheel does indeed get the grease and don't give up when you know you're right. But it is kind of sad when you have to shame a big corporation into fixing a problem they themselves caused.
But hey, things are not that bad for me at all. I have a house full of happy rabbits and doves, lots of good friends, time to enjoy myself and get stuff done, and every reason to believe life will continue to be sweet and each day is to be savored and appreciated. I'm finding out that getting old kind of sucks, but with age comes a peace of mind and a level of contentment that just isn't possible when you are in your twenties or thirties. So I'm going to serve the bunnies their daily salad and think about the cooler days and nights which will surely come around again. In about 4 months.
We desert dwellers are now looking to the skies to bring us some relief in the form of the oft-promised but just as often missing-in-action monsoon storms. We get giddy with anticipation around midday as we watch the cumulus clouds pile up in massive, custard-like heaps in the northeast, hoping that later in the afternoon we will be treated to huge, torrential downpours and intense winds. In quite a few cases, all this drama and expectation is nothing but a big tease as storms pop all around us, but avoid the Valley of the Sun as if it were a big leper colony.
It's day 77 of the Gulf oil spill and the undersea well is still blowing oil into the water. It seems barely possible that this can continue for so long, and one wonders where all those millions and millions of gallons of crude oil are going. You can tell that news fatigue is starting to set in - the oil spill gets relegated to a spot on the news programs after the annual hot-dog eating contest and the latest professional athlete signing some preposterous, obscene gazillion-dollar contract.
By the way, is there anything as loathsome and disgusting as an eating contest? I am completely baffled why there is such interest in a bunch of repellent, gluttonous pigs cramming food down their gullets, like some kind of weird post-apocalyptic update of an ancient Roman food orgy. I can only hope that the participants come down with a terminal case of crapulence. Yes, there is such a word as "crapulence." It means "sickness caused by excessive eating or drinking." It's in the dictionary, check it out here. It's like the Word God made up a word as a gift for me. It's much classier than the more colloquial "craptacular." I plan on using words like "crapulent" and "flatulent" in conversation and correspondence as often as I can.
On the immigration front, we had someone named Barry Wong, who is a candidate for the Arizona Corporation Commission, the governing body that controls utility rates, come up with a rather incredible idea of cutting off electrical power to illegal immigrants. This idea is breath-taking in its insanity and can probably make its own run for the most half-baked, ridiculous idea of the year. How this proposed law could implemented and enforced, Mr. Wong did not deign to explain, but in an area where the temperatures can reach 115 degrees or higher it this would be tantamount to murder. Also, you would have to know where all the illegal immigrants live before you can start cutting power, and most people here illegally go to a lot of trouble to keep that information from the authorities. I fail to see how the whole immigration debate is advanced by this kind of demented logic, but maybe it works as comic relief, in a pathetic kind of way.
Way to go, Cox Communications, for giving me a brand-new cable modem when my old one stopped working last Thursday night. Oh, I should point out that Cox decided they weren't going to support my old modem due to changes in their network, so when I called and complained about my high-speed internet service going away, they said it was my problem and I need to buy a new modem. They very graciously offered to sell me a new modem for the "discounted price of $39.99." I told them they can shove their discounted price up their discounted butts and started up the corporate ladder on Friday morning. After about an hour complaining they relented and delivered a shiny, brand-new Motorola modem to my house. So they get points for a good resolution but they also lose points because I had to force them to do the right thing. The lesson in all this, kids, is the squeaky wheel does indeed get the grease and don't give up when you know you're right. But it is kind of sad when you have to shame a big corporation into fixing a problem they themselves caused.
But hey, things are not that bad for me at all. I have a house full of happy rabbits and doves, lots of good friends, time to enjoy myself and get stuff done, and every reason to believe life will continue to be sweet and each day is to be savored and appreciated. I'm finding out that getting old kind of sucks, but with age comes a peace of mind and a level of contentment that just isn't possible when you are in your twenties or thirties. So I'm going to serve the bunnies their daily salad and think about the cooler days and nights which will surely come around again. In about 4 months.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Requiem for a Coastline, Part 2
Here we are at day 67 of the Gulf oil spill and things are still going to hell down there. After much fanfare they partially topped off the gushing oil pipe with some kind of cap, which worked sort of well until some underwater robot came by and screwed it up. So they had to open up a bunch of valves and recalibrate something which allowed the oil to gush out again just as before. This is what passes for progress in this situation.
Meanwhile the oil is spreading to the beaches and has wreaked havoc on Pensacola Beach, Florida. It was really heart-rending to see how emotional the residents of that city became when they realized this was only the beginning. They could see their former way of life slip and ebb away just like the tide, except that it will probably not be coming back for a very long time. Probably the hardest things to see go away are the most intangible - qualities that you can't feel or touch, but their absence will change everything. There are ominous stories of oil not only on the surface, but under water where it cannot be seen, and where we can't track where it's going or how extensive it is. And now, the possibility of the season's first hurricane looms further south in the Caribbean Sea. What that will do to an already cataclysmic situation will probably redefine the term "disaster" for the entire world.
And who knew the Brits would suck so badly at public relations? From the very beginning BP seemed to have tremendous luck finding one enormous PR pothole after the other to fall into, the first being a put-upon CEO Tony Hayward complaining that he "wants his life back." Well, I'm thinking the Gulf coast residents want their lives, their livelihood, and their way of life back, too. Have a cup of Earl Gray and a scone with clotted cream on me, Tony, and come back when you've thought about what you said. Then some other high muckety-muck in the company said he felt sorry for the "little people" who are having such a rough time. Some of these aforementioned "little people" felt like they had been sucker-punched in the mouth and then told they were a punk-ass bitch just for good measure. In the BP official's defense, English is not his primary language and probably didn't exactly mean that as it came across. But in this sound-bite world, that doesn't matter - the damage is done and people were steamed about it. Then Tony Hayward again threw oil on that fire by taking a day off to race his yacht in the pristine waters near the Isle of Wight off the English coast. That SO did not play well with the more egalitarian American audience. Add to all that BP's relentless low-balling of their estimates of how many gallons of oil are actually being spewed into the gulf, and their multi-million dollar advertising campaign telling all of us not to worry because they are doing so well in handling the cleanup and paying out claims (a campaign which is having exactly the opposite of the intended effect), and you have all the ingredients of a screw-up of epic, Biblical proportions.
And then Congress, who has never met a bad situation that it couldn't mess up even more, came through for us again big time at a Congressional committee investigation of the oil spill. The day before, the top brass at BP came to the White House for a good old-fashioned spanking by President Obama, and then this idiot Congressman from Texas (name is unimportant since they're all idiots) gets up at the committee hearing and apologizes to the BP executives for the shoddy treatment afforded them at the White House. Oh that made such a lovely sound bite all over the news programs for like three days. This brought a veritable flood of apologies from the lip-flapping Texan and a number of other Republican leaders but amazingly, they still allowed this moron to keep his seat on the Congressional committee. I really hope the Democrats can make political hay out of this one, and make the country realize that the "GOP" should really be the "GOBP."
And while we're on the subject of disgusting, loathsome, toxic spills, Sarah Palin, Queen of the Inbred, let a vast quantity of stupidity gush out of her mouth again at some speech last Friday in Turlock, California. Palin lent her "star power," such as it is, to raise money for a worthy cause, California State University-Stanislaus - a seemingly generous act until you understand that she still found it within herself to charge a $75,000 speaker's fee and request $18,000 in first class travel and accommodations for her scrawny worthless ass and all the crack whores and meth addicts she drags with her from Wasilla, Alaska. Way to raise money, Cal State Stanislaus, drop nearly $100K just to listen to some ignorant hillbilly rant about the evils of the "lamestream media" while being only dimly aware that if it weren't for the "lamestream media" that she so gleefully criticizes, she would be stuck in some 2-by-4 cage in a Wasilla breeding farm, popping out litters of babies to ensure that the prisons and drug dealers will be in business for decades to come.
This oil spill is far, far from over, and I fear it's going to one of those national catastrophes that will demarcate time into "before the spill" and "after the spill." The effects will be with us for decades and the impact of the destruction to the environment is only just begin felt. It probably won't be seen as on a par with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, since that incident was immediate, highly visual and instantly horrifying. The oil spill is a completely different event - much slower, not particularly flashy, and much more long-lasting - but in terms of sheer awfulness it will be up there in the rankings of infamy. But I do believe it will change how things are done in this country forever, as the terrorist attacks did, and maybe in the long view of history that will turn out to be the only good thing that comes from it. But right now all I see are soiled beaches and sea birds, turtles and dolphins dying from this expanding oil plague that the hubris and recklessness of man has inflicted on a singularly special and unique area of the Gulf coast.
Meanwhile the oil is spreading to the beaches and has wreaked havoc on Pensacola Beach, Florida. It was really heart-rending to see how emotional the residents of that city became when they realized this was only the beginning. They could see their former way of life slip and ebb away just like the tide, except that it will probably not be coming back for a very long time. Probably the hardest things to see go away are the most intangible - qualities that you can't feel or touch, but their absence will change everything. There are ominous stories of oil not only on the surface, but under water where it cannot be seen, and where we can't track where it's going or how extensive it is. And now, the possibility of the season's first hurricane looms further south in the Caribbean Sea. What that will do to an already cataclysmic situation will probably redefine the term "disaster" for the entire world.
And who knew the Brits would suck so badly at public relations? From the very beginning BP seemed to have tremendous luck finding one enormous PR pothole after the other to fall into, the first being a put-upon CEO Tony Hayward complaining that he "wants his life back." Well, I'm thinking the Gulf coast residents want their lives, their livelihood, and their way of life back, too. Have a cup of Earl Gray and a scone with clotted cream on me, Tony, and come back when you've thought about what you said. Then some other high muckety-muck in the company said he felt sorry for the "little people" who are having such a rough time. Some of these aforementioned "little people" felt like they had been sucker-punched in the mouth and then told they were a punk-ass bitch just for good measure. In the BP official's defense, English is not his primary language and probably didn't exactly mean that as it came across. But in this sound-bite world, that doesn't matter - the damage is done and people were steamed about it. Then Tony Hayward again threw oil on that fire by taking a day off to race his yacht in the pristine waters near the Isle of Wight off the English coast. That SO did not play well with the more egalitarian American audience. Add to all that BP's relentless low-balling of their estimates of how many gallons of oil are actually being spewed into the gulf, and their multi-million dollar advertising campaign telling all of us not to worry because they are doing so well in handling the cleanup and paying out claims (a campaign which is having exactly the opposite of the intended effect), and you have all the ingredients of a screw-up of epic, Biblical proportions.
And then Congress, who has never met a bad situation that it couldn't mess up even more, came through for us again big time at a Congressional committee investigation of the oil spill. The day before, the top brass at BP came to the White House for a good old-fashioned spanking by President Obama, and then this idiot Congressman from Texas (name is unimportant since they're all idiots) gets up at the committee hearing and apologizes to the BP executives for the shoddy treatment afforded them at the White House. Oh that made such a lovely sound bite all over the news programs for like three days. This brought a veritable flood of apologies from the lip-flapping Texan and a number of other Republican leaders but amazingly, they still allowed this moron to keep his seat on the Congressional committee. I really hope the Democrats can make political hay out of this one, and make the country realize that the "GOP" should really be the "GOBP."
And while we're on the subject of disgusting, loathsome, toxic spills, Sarah Palin, Queen of the Inbred, let a vast quantity of stupidity gush out of her mouth again at some speech last Friday in Turlock, California. Palin lent her "star power," such as it is, to raise money for a worthy cause, California State University-Stanislaus - a seemingly generous act until you understand that she still found it within herself to charge a $75,000 speaker's fee and request $18,000 in first class travel and accommodations for her scrawny worthless ass and all the crack whores and meth addicts she drags with her from Wasilla, Alaska. Way to raise money, Cal State Stanislaus, drop nearly $100K just to listen to some ignorant hillbilly rant about the evils of the "lamestream media" while being only dimly aware that if it weren't for the "lamestream media" that she so gleefully criticizes, she would be stuck in some 2-by-4 cage in a Wasilla breeding farm, popping out litters of babies to ensure that the prisons and drug dealers will be in business for decades to come.
This oil spill is far, far from over, and I fear it's going to one of those national catastrophes that will demarcate time into "before the spill" and "after the spill." The effects will be with us for decades and the impact of the destruction to the environment is only just begin felt. It probably won't be seen as on a par with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, since that incident was immediate, highly visual and instantly horrifying. The oil spill is a completely different event - much slower, not particularly flashy, and much more long-lasting - but in terms of sheer awfulness it will be up there in the rankings of infamy. But I do believe it will change how things are done in this country forever, as the terrorist attacks did, and maybe in the long view of history that will turn out to be the only good thing that comes from it. But right now all I see are soiled beaches and sea birds, turtles and dolphins dying from this expanding oil plague that the hubris and recklessness of man has inflicted on a singularly special and unique area of the Gulf coast.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Requiem for a Coastline
After forty-odd days of increasingly horrible news coming out of the spill area of the Gulf of Mexico, today brought the first real glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, engineers might be getting the upper hand in controlling the undersea gusher of crude oil left over from an oil rig explosion. Spewing many thousands of gallons of oil each day into the sea, the resultant oil plume has begun the slow-motion, agonizing destruction of one of the most unique and productive seashores in the entire world.
I think most people still don't understand the enormity of the unmitigated catastrophe unfolding in front of the world. The extremely painful videos and photographs of pelicans and sea birds saturated with thick, greasy, brown oil are so very hard to watch, but maybe that is what is needed to shock people into understanding the real tragedy and impact that the carelessness of humans has wrought on an epic scale.
Nor is there a lot of appreciation of the staggeringly difficult task that plugging the oil vent presents. All this is going on under nearly a mile of water, and there are very few environments on earth that are more hostile. The enormous water pressure, low temperature, currents and visibility issues all come together to make any activities especially difficult. Some idiots continue to say brainless things like, "if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we stop this leak?" Well, morons, putting a man on the moon was an incredibly difficult task, too. The lunar landing didn't just happen, it was the culmination of a decade of planning, engineering and just plain courage. Likewise, stopping this leak will entail a bit more than sending down a giant cork and hoping to be done by lunchtime.
Speaking of idiots, that intellectual pile of sludge known as Sarah Palin for some reason finds it necessary to open her big obnoxious yap about this subject, and predictably a torrent of stupidity rivaling the undersea oil leak blows out. She wrote some kind of incredibly dumb blather on Twitter addressed to "ExtremeGreenies," which I guess is her pet name for environmentalists, and tried to make the point that every time she stupidly repeated her dimwitted catchphrase "drill baby drill" over and over again like a retarded mynah bird she wasn't really yammering about drilling for oil offshore, but rather in places that she regards as environmentally safe drill areas like ANWR (Alaska National Wildlife Refuge). And somehow, she feels the Gulf oil spill proves she was right all along. Excuse me???
I guess this incredibly stupid, sad political hack thinks that an oil spill on pristine Alaskan tundra is preferable to an undersea oil spill. Sarah Palin is a gigantic, infected pimple on the ass of society and continues to redefine the outer boundaries of incompetence and stupidity with everything she bleats out in her annoying trailer-trash Barbie doll voice. Apparently at one point they tried to clog up the leaking oil pipes by stuffing it with cement and garbage like golf balls and shredded tires. What they should have done was stuffed the hole with Sarah Palin and BP executives. It just might have solved a lot of obnoxious problems at once.
It is so baffling trying to understand why that beautiful, serene part of the world is victimized repeatedly by disasters, both natural and man-made. A whole string of destructive hurricanes, topped by Katrina, have ravaged that area in recent years. Oil spills both large and small, continued pollution of the sea and air, the draining of natural wetlands to facilitate human development, and the construction over many years of a haphazard, crazy-quilt system of levees, dikes and dams have forever negatively altered the fragile interplay of sun, wind and ocean that make up the coast. Like watching a terminal cancer patient lose their battle with the disease, the death of the Louisiana coast is a supremely painful and unparalleled tragedy for America, made all the worse by the slow, inexorable and deliberate pace of its demise.
I think most people still don't understand the enormity of the unmitigated catastrophe unfolding in front of the world. The extremely painful videos and photographs of pelicans and sea birds saturated with thick, greasy, brown oil are so very hard to watch, but maybe that is what is needed to shock people into understanding the real tragedy and impact that the carelessness of humans has wrought on an epic scale.
Nor is there a lot of appreciation of the staggeringly difficult task that plugging the oil vent presents. All this is going on under nearly a mile of water, and there are very few environments on earth that are more hostile. The enormous water pressure, low temperature, currents and visibility issues all come together to make any activities especially difficult. Some idiots continue to say brainless things like, "if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we stop this leak?" Well, morons, putting a man on the moon was an incredibly difficult task, too. The lunar landing didn't just happen, it was the culmination of a decade of planning, engineering and just plain courage. Likewise, stopping this leak will entail a bit more than sending down a giant cork and hoping to be done by lunchtime.
Speaking of idiots, that intellectual pile of sludge known as Sarah Palin for some reason finds it necessary to open her big obnoxious yap about this subject, and predictably a torrent of stupidity rivaling the undersea oil leak blows out. She wrote some kind of incredibly dumb blather on Twitter addressed to "ExtremeGreenies," which I guess is her pet name for environmentalists, and tried to make the point that every time she stupidly repeated her dimwitted catchphrase "drill baby drill" over and over again like a retarded mynah bird she wasn't really yammering about drilling for oil offshore, but rather in places that she regards as environmentally safe drill areas like ANWR (Alaska National Wildlife Refuge). And somehow, she feels the Gulf oil spill proves she was right all along. Excuse me???
I guess this incredibly stupid, sad political hack thinks that an oil spill on pristine Alaskan tundra is preferable to an undersea oil spill. Sarah Palin is a gigantic, infected pimple on the ass of society and continues to redefine the outer boundaries of incompetence and stupidity with everything she bleats out in her annoying trailer-trash Barbie doll voice. Apparently at one point they tried to clog up the leaking oil pipes by stuffing it with cement and garbage like golf balls and shredded tires. What they should have done was stuffed the hole with Sarah Palin and BP executives. It just might have solved a lot of obnoxious problems at once.
It is so baffling trying to understand why that beautiful, serene part of the world is victimized repeatedly by disasters, both natural and man-made. A whole string of destructive hurricanes, topped by Katrina, have ravaged that area in recent years. Oil spills both large and small, continued pollution of the sea and air, the draining of natural wetlands to facilitate human development, and the construction over many years of a haphazard, crazy-quilt system of levees, dikes and dams have forever negatively altered the fragile interplay of sun, wind and ocean that make up the coast. Like watching a terminal cancer patient lose their battle with the disease, the death of the Louisiana coast is a supremely painful and unparalleled tragedy for America, made all the worse by the slow, inexorable and deliberate pace of its demise.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Sage the Miracle Bunny
Note: In this world of catastrophic oil spills, economic collapse and everyone freaking out over illegal immigration and racial profiling, it often seems that good news is something that happened in the distant past. Occasionally we do come across a story that starts out awful but somehow finds itself a happy ending. This is the true story of Sage, the Miracle Bunny:
Sage is a very handsome, very sweet Mini-Lop rabbit with huge friendly brown eyes that belie the terrible ordeals he has had to endure the past several months. When you pick him and hold him he veritably melts into your arms, and will close his eyes in blissful contentment as you stroke his head. It's so hard to believe how he can surrender himself so completely and trust the touch of a human being after the treatment he has suffered, but one of the most amazing aspects of this wonderful bunny is that he does trust so completely, and so easily.
Where Sage originally came from we have no way of knowing. The only thing we can do is piece together his recent past from anecdotes. A man in the far west Valley had a number of rabbits that he kept in an outdoor hutch. His neighbor noticed that the rabbits were kept in very poor conditions and talked his neighbor into giving him Sage and another bunny. This neighbor also kept the rabbits in some sort of outdoor enclosure, but under marginally better conditions. One night they heard a commotion outside from the rabbit area, and in the darkness they thought they saw a coyote going after the rabbits. The people did not go out to check on the rabbits, claiming to be afraid of the coyote, and when they finally went out to look in the morning, the coyote had bitten off the lower portion of Sage's right front leg. In human terms it would be as if everything past your wrist would be gone. Apparently being too stupid to realize that a little veterinary attention just might be a good thing right then, the care they provided to Sage amounted to taping popsicle sticks to his damaged leg as a sort of splint, and they let him exist that way for three months.
In what would be the first of a series of miracles, Sage's shortened paw healed and did not get infected, despite an inch and a half of visible, exposed bone. The constant pain must have been unimaginable, and I'm sure every step he took was agonizing. One day, a bunny enthusiast from the west Valley was in a grocery store buying vegetables for her rabbits, and she was chatting with the store cashier about bunnies. It just so happened that Sage's owner was standing behind her and overheard their conversation. He started to tell them the story of how he has rabbits and one of them had part of his paw bitten off by a coyote three months ago and how he had hoped the coyote would come back and finish the rabbit off. Needless to say, the bunny person went berserk and talked the man into surrendering Sage to her. She went to his house to get Sage and found another rabbit in the cage with him - a small Holland lop covered with urine stains which we would later name Oscar - so she took both of them. A short time later both bunnies found their way to Brambley Hedge Rabbit Rescue.
All the volunteers at the Rescue were appalled at Sage's gruesome injury and exposed leg bone, so getting him to our veterinarian was a top priority. Our vet intended to save as much of Sage's leg as he could but ended up removing Sage's front paw completely, up to where it meets his torso. After the surgery Sage went into loving foster care and appeared to recover rapidly, seemingly unfazed by his missing front leg.
Then, on a Saturday night, Sage's story would take a very dramatic turn as he suddenly developed a serious problem with his lungs. He started coughing and choking, and red mucus started coming out of his nose. His foster parents rushed him to the emergency clinic, and when they got there he was laying on his side with his lips turning blue. He was most likely minutes away from death at that point. The clinic put him in their "oxygen cage," kind of an oxygen tent for animals, and after a couple of hours Sage started to sit up, look around and groom himself. Once more, amazingly, Sage had cheated death.
After consulting with the veterinarians, our best guess is that Sage suffered a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in his lungs. These are more often than not fatal, but that was not to be the case for Sage. He went back to foster care and has made an amazing recovery since. He has learned to move around quite well without his leg, and there are YouTube videos here and here of him hopping and frolicking around outside in a grassy yard. Sage loves his daily salads but seems to enjoy being petted and loved most of all. Like any happy, healthy rabbit, he loves to explore but does not have quite the stamina of a regular rabbit. We think his lungs may have diminished capacity due to the embolism, and also moving and hopping around might be more of a strain on him with only three legs. But he knows when he is tired and will stop to take a breather, and when sufficiently rested, will jump up and happily scamper off to take care of more bunny business. Sage went to his first rabbit adoption event recently and was an enormous hit, charming each and every person he met.
Some people think that in our technologically advanced times, the age of miracles is over. When people barely react with more than a slightly-stifled yawn at space shuttle launches or medical breakthroughs, it seems ever easier to overlook the tiny miracles, the little things that happen under our noses each day that are wondrous and uplifting. Every day we have with Sage is one of those little miracles, another opportunity for him to get up and brighten the world with his big heart and sunny disposition, and is an undeniable indication that miracles do, indeed, happen.
Sage is a very handsome, very sweet Mini-Lop rabbit with huge friendly brown eyes that belie the terrible ordeals he has had to endure the past several months. When you pick him and hold him he veritably melts into your arms, and will close his eyes in blissful contentment as you stroke his head. It's so hard to believe how he can surrender himself so completely and trust the touch of a human being after the treatment he has suffered, but one of the most amazing aspects of this wonderful bunny is that he does trust so completely, and so easily.
Where Sage originally came from we have no way of knowing. The only thing we can do is piece together his recent past from anecdotes. A man in the far west Valley had a number of rabbits that he kept in an outdoor hutch. His neighbor noticed that the rabbits were kept in very poor conditions and talked his neighbor into giving him Sage and another bunny. This neighbor also kept the rabbits in some sort of outdoor enclosure, but under marginally better conditions. One night they heard a commotion outside from the rabbit area, and in the darkness they thought they saw a coyote going after the rabbits. The people did not go out to check on the rabbits, claiming to be afraid of the coyote, and when they finally went out to look in the morning, the coyote had bitten off the lower portion of Sage's right front leg. In human terms it would be as if everything past your wrist would be gone. Apparently being too stupid to realize that a little veterinary attention just might be a good thing right then, the care they provided to Sage amounted to taping popsicle sticks to his damaged leg as a sort of splint, and they let him exist that way for three months.
In what would be the first of a series of miracles, Sage's shortened paw healed and did not get infected, despite an inch and a half of visible, exposed bone. The constant pain must have been unimaginable, and I'm sure every step he took was agonizing. One day, a bunny enthusiast from the west Valley was in a grocery store buying vegetables for her rabbits, and she was chatting with the store cashier about bunnies. It just so happened that Sage's owner was standing behind her and overheard their conversation. He started to tell them the story of how he has rabbits and one of them had part of his paw bitten off by a coyote three months ago and how he had hoped the coyote would come back and finish the rabbit off. Needless to say, the bunny person went berserk and talked the man into surrendering Sage to her. She went to his house to get Sage and found another rabbit in the cage with him - a small Holland lop covered with urine stains which we would later name Oscar - so she took both of them. A short time later both bunnies found their way to Brambley Hedge Rabbit Rescue.
All the volunteers at the Rescue were appalled at Sage's gruesome injury and exposed leg bone, so getting him to our veterinarian was a top priority. Our vet intended to save as much of Sage's leg as he could but ended up removing Sage's front paw completely, up to where it meets his torso. After the surgery Sage went into loving foster care and appeared to recover rapidly, seemingly unfazed by his missing front leg.
Then, on a Saturday night, Sage's story would take a very dramatic turn as he suddenly developed a serious problem with his lungs. He started coughing and choking, and red mucus started coming out of his nose. His foster parents rushed him to the emergency clinic, and when they got there he was laying on his side with his lips turning blue. He was most likely minutes away from death at that point. The clinic put him in their "oxygen cage," kind of an oxygen tent for animals, and after a couple of hours Sage started to sit up, look around and groom himself. Once more, amazingly, Sage had cheated death.
After consulting with the veterinarians, our best guess is that Sage suffered a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in his lungs. These are more often than not fatal, but that was not to be the case for Sage. He went back to foster care and has made an amazing recovery since. He has learned to move around quite well without his leg, and there are YouTube videos here and here of him hopping and frolicking around outside in a grassy yard. Sage loves his daily salads but seems to enjoy being petted and loved most of all. Like any happy, healthy rabbit, he loves to explore but does not have quite the stamina of a regular rabbit. We think his lungs may have diminished capacity due to the embolism, and also moving and hopping around might be more of a strain on him with only three legs. But he knows when he is tired and will stop to take a breather, and when sufficiently rested, will jump up and happily scamper off to take care of more bunny business. Sage went to his first rabbit adoption event recently and was an enormous hit, charming each and every person he met.
Some people think that in our technologically advanced times, the age of miracles is over. When people barely react with more than a slightly-stifled yawn at space shuttle launches or medical breakthroughs, it seems ever easier to overlook the tiny miracles, the little things that happen under our noses each day that are wondrous and uplifting. Every day we have with Sage is one of those little miracles, another opportunity for him to get up and brighten the world with his big heart and sunny disposition, and is an undeniable indication that miracles do, indeed, happen.
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