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Maybe in Tennessee

I’ve really been on hiatus lately. I apologize for that. I’ve not been keeping up with the news like I should. So when I ran across a story where a Tennessee bill passed the Senate by a 28-1 vote, I almost fell off my chair. It turns out that a bill was passed in Tennessee which bans hand holding by teenagers. Evidently…they believe…hand holding can lead to thoughts of sexual activity in teens, and should be avoided. Well…I hate to have to point out the obvious Gomer, but to a teenager…a monkey wrench can be a gateway to sexual thought in teenagers.

I was really amazed at this retarded move by the Tennessee legislature until I remembered that this was also the state which hosted the Scopes Monkey Trial, where a teacher was found guilty for teaching evolution (a.k.a. Science) in the classroom.  So it shouldn’t surprise anyone when they also banned the use of the words gay, and homosexual, in the schools as well. How progressive! I have no doubt that by next year they will be having their annual bon fire and book burning.

After all, this is the state that still has laws on the books which make Inter racial marriage illegal. The argument could be made that they didn’t feel the need to remove it, having the 14th Amendment of the Constitution overwriting it and all. However, maybe they’re just holding out hope? Either way, it’s a stupid law. I guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone that gays are not allowed to marry in the state. Really…all they had to do was take out the words black, negro, mulattoe, and mixed blood, and replace them with gay, queer, and homosexual. It would have saved them a great deal of time and effort.

I realize that not everyone feels the way I do about equal rights. Some people think that because you live a certain way, that you are harming others.  I’m not sure how two consenting adults being in love harms anyone, but there it is. Either way, how can you deny the rights of two individuals based on outdated religious doctrine?

As long as two consenting adults are not engaging in sexual acts in public view, who cares who they’re with? I really don’t want to watch anyone making out in public, gay or straight. It’s annoying. Gratuitous public displays of affection are gross. No one wants to see them. Unless you’re Angelina Jolie getting hot and heavy with…well…anyone…I don’t want to see it.

Which brings me back to the reason for this rant. Why on earth someone thinks all acts ultimately lead to other acts is crazy.  Those ideas are not based on much scientific study.  Not that I think Tennessee spends too much time worrying about science.  Holding hands does not lead to sex, just like smoking marijuana does not lead to becoming a crack whore.  However, through extensive personal research in high school, I did find that it leads to poor food choices.  Therefore, holding hands is not a sexual act, or a gateway to a sexual act.  I suppose kissing could be…maybe…unless it’s a relative.

OK…maybe between relatives in Tennessee.

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New Life at 47

I’m about to turn 47. It’s been another year, and boy…have things changed. I’ve got a new job, a new girlfriend, and where last year I was reflective on the past, now I’m looking to the future. I’ve always been selective about the people I let close to me. It’s a rare occasion when I meet someone I can fully connect. I can honestly say that it is almost unprecedented that I let anyone in at all. If you had asked me 12 months ago if I thought I would be living with someone I would have laughed. Now I can’t imagine living without them. Please understand…that in my world…this is unprecedented.

Since the advent of Facebook, I get to spend a lot of time listening to people complain, praise, or otherwise comment on their relationships. I’m forever amused, amazed, and mystified by some of the comments. I find them fascinating. Some people love their significant others, and some outright hate them. Who needs reality TV? I can just read about real lives each morning with my glass of diet Coke. What makes it so interesting is the number of things I don’t really understand about relationships. I haven’t had but a few, and they really didn’t last very long.

So here’s what I find confusing. I have never been able to spend time with someone I don’t really like. Make no mistake…there are people out there I love dearly, but I can’t stand to spend more than 10 minutes with them. I certainly wouldn’t sleep with them. I just don’t understand why some people decide to live their lives with people they don’t really like. It just seems draconian to me. I wonder what self-loathing someone must engender to accept such punishment. Are you hiding some secret Dexter fantasy where you tie people to a table and play Sam the Butcher from the Brady Bunch? Unless you’re a mass murderer, I’m pretty sure you don’t have to be miserable.

Admittedly I haven’t had many lengthy relationships. Still, those I have had, were very fulfilling learning experiences. They’ve shaped who I am today, and have taught me how to treat, and be treated by, others. In fact, I can guarantee that each one of them is reading this right now (you all know who you are).

So please understand that for me to share a home with someone is beyond anything I have ever experienced. I’m surprised at how easy it has become. I might have felt stifled before by a continuous presence. Now I can’t imagine not seeing her when I open the door. I finally understand what it’s like to have someone you can completely trust. So with that, I bid you all another year of happiness and devotion. I hope you find someone that makes you has happy as the person I have in my life. For right now…I can’t imagine living any other way.

The future’s lookin pretty good!  It’s a new life at 47.

Rex

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Freedom from Stupid

I’m getting so tired of hearing how this or that has never happened in our history.  How horrible, groundbreaking, breathtaking, unprecedented, blah, blah, blah, an issue is that might be happening on the news.  People are all a fluster over the next little event that has somehow become a great outrage.  It’s like the entire country has devolved into a guiless cluster of morons.  “My God…how can that happen?  What is wrong with the world?”  As if lies and deceit were something novel.  They’re all acting like little girls swinging on the monkey bars, aghast that the boys have been checking up their skirts.  Give me a break!
I guess the politicians take some of the blame for ratcheting up the rhetoric on this crap.  Still, I blame a lazy, uninformed, and uneducated public for letting them get by with it.  It’s their job to get us to buy the bullshit, and our job to call them on it.  You can’t be the shill at the carnival, and then get pissed when you get ripped off!
Let’s start with the Republican Primary.  I can’t count the number of times I heard newscasters, reporters, or people at the water cooler talk about how many candidates the Republican’s had.  “Good God look at the field.  It’s like every Republican politician is running.”  Well…not exactly.  Nor is it unprecedented, nor was the field all that large.  The 2008 election had the Democratic field almost as large, and I heard the same things then.  Are people seriously surprised when the time comes to run for President that every power-hungry-party-hack wants to be our fearless leader?  If you are…well then my friend…let’s talk about the rise in Florida swamp futures.
The other day I actually heard someone in the booth next to me at Village Inn say “Never before in our history have we had to occupy another country after a war.”  Really?  How about Korea?  Wait…Japan?  Hmmm….Germany maybe?  Where are these people living?  I want to find these rocks.  I need extra money, and they’re just the right kind of stupid.
When John Kerry was running for President, I heard over, and over again, by pundits, politicians, press, and everyday people, even by some family members, that “You don’t change Presidents during a war.”  You don’t?  How about almost every war we’ve had in the 20thcentury?  Let’s start with World War II, shall we?  We lost Roosevelt, and Truman took office.  Then in the Korean War, we elected Eisenhower who replaced Truman.  During the entire time we had troops in Vietnam we went through Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and finally Ford.  Even Goldman Sachs has had fewer leaders in the same time span, and they managed to destroy an entire economy.
This brings me to another matter, our current financial crisis.  Do people really think this is the first time we have ever seen this type of financial meltdown?  We’ve had more than one depression, and just about every decade we see a recession.  This is nothing new.  In 2001, prior to 9/11, the tech bubble burst and evidence showed that companies like Qwest, Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom devised investment strategies which collapsed the markets, causing thousands to lose their homes, jobs, and life savings.  Are you really surprised that it happened again in the housing industry?  Are you surprised that at the center of BOTH the technology bubble, AND the housing bubble we find Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and hosts of other Investment firms? 
Seriously, all the pandering, peddling, pushing, name calling, testifying, and bullying is nothing new.  We have seen this throughout time.  There is nothing new under the sun.  The world is not coming to an end.  Communism, fascism, or whatever ism you’ve got stuck in your craw is not coming into being.  This is just life.  It is nothing new.  And until you realize this you are just another pawn in the world of media hell bent on selling you the next new crisis. 
In 1941 Franklin Roosevelt made a speech to Congress to support the build up for war with Germany.  In that speech he said that the United States was fighting for the universal freedoms that all people possessed.  These were the Freedom of speech and expression, the freedom of every person to worship God in his OWN way, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear.  I wish he would have added the freedom from stupid. 
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I Just Want to Buy Gas

I’ve spent so much time ranting about politics over the last few years, I felt it time to get to something more general.  So someone please tell me why, when I want to buy a tank of gas, I have to punch so many numbers into the keypad that by the end I feel I’m developing carpal tunnel syndrome?  All I want is a tank of gas.  Seriously…do you really think while standing in sub-zero weather, it’s a good time to make me spend 25 minutes standing outside my car running through the 35 options on your electronic gas pump?  It was so cold the other day while pumping gas, I swear it’s going to be a month before a skilled physician can determine my sex.

I can’t just swipe my credit card anymore.  Now I have to decide whether it’s Credit or Debit, enter my pin, zip code, date of birth, tell them if I want a car wash, buy snacks, date of my last physical, and last four digits of my social security number just to buy 50 dollars worth of premium.  The problem then goes further when after I make all these choices, the pump tells me that I have to see the attendant because something happened during the verification phase so I’m forced to walk into the store which defeats the purpose of pay at the pump in the first place.  Then the clerk, who’s only been in the country about 15 minutes, explains to me through hand signals and pen drawings that I have to go back out and stand in the cold again because he’s never seen anyone actually come into the store to pay for gas.  He’s only had his 10 seconds of training, and he has yet to learn how the card reader works.

This still isn’t where it ends!  I drive a full-sized pickup truck.  Fifty dollars doesn’t come close to filling the tank.  Gas pumps evidently are incapable of dispensing more than $50.00 worth of gas in a single purchase, so I have to repeat the process twice because it takes about $ 80.00 to $90.00 to fill my tank.  You would think when gas prices get so high that you have to take out a home loan to fill your car that they would catch the pumps up to the economy.  I’m tellin’ ya, if you go back into the store at that point because the pay at the pump process didn’t work, they become so scared and confused they run out the back door.

I definitely understand why you might need to enter your zip code so they can verify that at least you know the code for the neighborhood where you stole the card.  It’s not fool proof, but at least it’s something.  However, why can’t they come up with a better way to decide if you want to buy candy?  The reason you came up with pay at the pump, and paper machines, was because you didn’t want me taking up space inside the store for people who wanted to buy cigarettes and candy.  Why screw up what you wanted in the first place?  You’re acting like my bank.  They created ATM machines, and started charging for personal teller service to get me to use the ATM.  Then when they got me to use the ATM they upped their ATM fees, removed teller fees and forced me back inside the bank.  Can someone make up my mind?

You would think it wouldn’t be that difficult.  We have some pretty advanced technology.  There’s really not much to a gas pump which should stymie you.  Hell…I have a phone that can surf the web, send email, turn on my coffee pot, program a VCR, and start my stove.  I think we can figure out a gas pump that can dispense fuel.  Then again…I’m still recovering from frost-bite.  My brain may not be working properly.
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And the Christian in Chief will be?

The Iowa Caucuses are in full swing, and not in four years have we seen so many traveling dime-store preachers as we do right now. Some of the commercials are so blatant in their hypocrisy that they border on comedy. If commercials were true, we’d see Rick Perry and Mitt Romney sprout wings.  I’ve seen more reality in an SNL skit. It makes a person long for the days when we strung up medicine showmen for their attempts to lie to us. Wait…I’ll get a rope.

The Republicans want a rope as well.  It just shows you how much the religious right hates the President. They’re so Christian they would hang that uppity black guy (I’m sure they aren’t so polite as to use the term black guy, but you get the meaning). After all, he is a foreign-born Muslim with delusions of being a Christian radical with a Hitler complex.

How dare the President carry on with the economic policies created by the previous administration? Would a Christian do that?  I’m not even remotely a fan of the policies, but somehow they’ve been able to hang the blame on the black guy. Look at Rick Santorum. He has the audacity to attack the president even while benefiting from his economic stimulus. That’s kind of like drowning a guy for pulling you from a raging river. It’s so Christian of you! There’s so much baring of false witness here, that Moses is considering Marketing as a new line of work.

Christian zealots like to point out that this country was founded on THEIR religious principles. I will just tell you now that if you espouse this rhetoric, you are either A: ignorant, or B: a liar. There is no C. You only get to choose A, or B.  You would have learned the truth in 7th grade. I know I did. It’s in Article 6 of the Constitution:

“…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

I would love to see that article taken one step further. If you use religion to further your political career, then you forfeit your bid for office. Don’t take this as my admonishment of religious thought. I actually admire people of faith. I just don’t think these people have any. It appears to me, at every instance, they’re using religion as a tool for hate.

If you think religion or zealotry are great qualifications for public office then might I suggest moving to Iran? I mean with the public beatings, stoning, and other human atrocities, it seems to work well. Oh wait! They’re not Christian. I’m sure that would never happen in a Christian-based society. Well, there were the Crusades, where Christians attempted to beat their ideas into the heads of the “Moors and Saracen’s.” How about the Spanish Inquisition where people were beaten, maimed, and killed, for attempting to advance scientific and political thought (gee…no connection to today at all). What about the conflict between Protestants and Catholics that has raged for hundreds of years in Ireland and England? Want something more recent? How about religious sects right here at home who rape children, subjugate women, and attempt to usurp our government all in the name of Christ? Can you say Warren Jeffs? How about Waco? Did you really think Muslim zealots were the only groups who killed over religion?

The reason the Article was added to the Constitution in the first place was to prevent what is actually happening today. In fact it was the preachers who lobbied so heavily for the amendment. They wanted to make sure God wasn’t being used as a bargaining chip for what they saw as a torrid process…Electioneering. Our founding fathers also didn’t want what was happening all over Great Britain at the time to spill over into this country. They feared that once a state religion took hold, all manner of atrocities would ensue. If you ask me, it seems they were right.

Satan is so proud!