Only In America

Hello.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Ah Thanksgiving. It’s a purely American holiday. It’s friendly. Everyone at one point in time has invited an acquaintance home just because that person had nowhere else to go. And it’s a sin to be alone on this particular day. So even though we don’t really mean it, we must invite strangers to our house for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving brings new meaning to the word gluttony. Since more than half of our population is obese, I blame Thanksgiving. We eat until we can’t move and then wait a few hours and eat some more. Trust me we’ve all had the Turkey hangover.That’s where you have to fast for three days after Thanksgiving because the sight of anything edible makes you want to vomit.

Thanksgiving is where we give thanks for all of the things we have. Our cell phones, our PS3s, our shiny cars. That’s right, we’re a nation of haves and we are grateful for it. Every year my son insists that he is grateful for his gameboy. To be honest, there are times when I am grateful for his gameboy. Especially on long car trips.

And lastly we give thanks to the Native Americans for helping our ancestors through that second winter (The first winter was a bit of a bust.) And ensuring that our break with England would eventually come to fruition.

So then why do I see an increasing amount of news articles about the British celebrating Thanksgiving? That’s a little ironic. But given that state of the world these days, I imagine that they are grateful for not being at all responsible for us. And show it by eating too much and watching football(that’s soccer for those who are globally challenged).

Well, whatever country you are in today, Good luck. May your turkey (or goose) be juicy and your relatives be just a little less snippy than last year. Amen.

Dogwoman

Anybody Got An Asprin, I Think I Have A Cold

Hello.

Last week some poor scientisty person kicked it due to Plague. That sucks for him. And anyone he may have coughed on.

This week I have been noticing some pretty ominous ads on Televsion. One is an ad sponsored by the CDC (I think) stating that this years flu season could be deadly so get your flu shots. The others are some grim ads by Lysol about germ transfer. It implies that if there are germs in your house, you and your whole family will die. I scoffed, as who wouldn’t, until I read this mornings news and then I thought, oh well, thanks for the info and does anyone know where I can get a Hazmat suit?

There’s a new sheriff in town and he looks a lot like an old sheriff in new clothes. The cold virus has new attitude. It has been killing people for the last year and a half. Quoi? And of course they are just telling us now. Surprise it’s not the Bird Flu, it’s a cold virus.

The CDC can’t seem to get their opinions together. In one article: it’s ok, nothing to be alarmed about, just though you might like to know. And in the next the CDC is practically screaming that we’re all gonna die.

I suspect the truth is somewhere in between. It’s a mutation they have never seen before on a virus everyone has had at least once. Scary, the unknown. Yet, only ten people have actually died though hundreds have been infected.

I like to think back fondly on the Flu Epidemic of 1918. When people thought God was passing judgment and millions of soldiers died in trenches, hacking and coughing themselves to death. Where one in every three people died. Yes, that was the hey day of viruses.

Of course we invented ways to stop that sort of thing. Now the viruses are reinventing themselves like some over blown eighties pop star who wants to re-issue an album that was good when it was first put out, but now really is kind of dated and frankly, hasn’t everybody heard all of these tracks, do we really need at twentieth anniversary edition?

Wait, where was I?

Oh yeah. Getting a flu shot won’t help. It’s a cold virus, not a flu virus. Lysoling everything within a twelve mile radius will not help either. Unless you are taking a Lysol bath. Sneeze and infect. Cough and infect. Talk and infect. It’s called droplet transmission . It’s also the reason I don’t like to eat out. The cooks talk over your food while they re cooking and, and well… ick.

So good luck everyone. Try to stay warm and cold free because the cure for the common cold is the same as it was for the Flu back in 1918. And you remember how effective that was.

Dogwoman

Or So I Thought

Hello.

So I thought Substitute Teaching was the way to go as I am in school. I could utilize my aforementioned talents as a teacher while attending class. Seemed like a good plan.

Until they asked me to teach Kindergarten.

Students: 1. Teacher:0

I went home with glue in my hair and a new appreciation for Kindergarten teachers.

Kindergartners are savages with art supplies and questions. And they will maim you with these weapons given the chance. I’d rather teach lions to dance than ever go back to a Kindergarten class.

If you teach little ones I applaud you.

Dogwoman

Show Me The Money

Hello,

A point was driven home to me as I listened to an interview on NPR this past week. It was a discussion on the increase of the wealthy. Essentially it talked about the need of the wealthy for services.

I thought about this. It seemed to say that the rise of what is in essence a servant class is a good thing. That because the wealthy can pay for servants, the poor should be the ones to provide them. That this would increase overall prosperity. So it would. But should it?

Over the last few years the middle class which has served as a buffer between exaggerated wealth and extreme poverty has declined. The debate over immigration has brought this point home as well. There were ads on both the T.V. and radio that I found highly objectionable. The gist was that employers needed cheap labor so the immigration bill should pass. The argument is that Americans are too lazy to do the menial jobs that illegals will do, cheaply. No, Americans want to maintain a standard of living that the media and corporations have told us we should aspire to but those same corporations don’t want to pay us what we think we are worth. If migrant work paid enough to maintain a bare minimum of living here in the US , people would do it.

As the money paradigm shifts toward two separate classes a caste system in slowly evolving. This system makes the minimum wage earners into an untouchable servant class. In order to meet the basic living often those earning minimum wage must have two jobs. Even with the tiny rise in the minimum wage a living wage is still out of reach. So, is the solution for the poor to become servants to the wealthy?

Let’s take Paris Hilton as an example of where this leads. Why did she behave the way she did? Because her whole life revolves around money and the privilege that is vested in that type of lifestyle. It makes people believe that they are above the law. The law is only there to keep the lower classes in check. It doesn’t apply to those with a great deal of disposable income. And too often this is true. Offenses that would send a poor person away for a long time earn the wealthy a slap on the wrist. (Unless you are a rapper, then, because it helps your record sales, you get the stiffest sentence available) And it’s not just that the wealthy can afford better lawyers. It is a mindset that says the wealthy are somehow better human beings, therefore, given a chance they wouldn’t repeat the offence. But that poor people are irredeemable animals who should be locked up forthwith. So, Wealthy equals good and poor equals bad. And we have all bought into this faulty logic. It’s part of-the reason that shows like Jerry Springer are so popular. Watching poor uneducated people beat the crap out of one another is amusing and proves that they really are nothing more than animals. Reinforcing the central idea that a poor person has nothing to offer society. Ergo recruiting them as servants is the only way to utilize their obviously limited talents.

It makes me mad. Really mad. It pushes the angry giantess into a seething giantess. Being poor is not some medical condition for-which only the wealthy have the cure. More often than not poverty is a byproduct of the actions of the wealthy. Shady business practices and an opportunist mentality keep large sections of societies at or just above poverty levels. Then to assume that because you have amassed a large bank account some how gives you the right to step on or order those who haven’t done so about is such shit I just can’t think.

Here’s something for people to think about. Not everyone who is poor is there by circumstance. Occasionally, you will find those who have steadfastly avoided paths that would have enriched them simply because they wanted to avoid the moral taint that comes with largess. Because they see the world and their life as something more than a place where success is measured in dollars and cents.

Success is something entirely different to those who are willing to see beyond the bottom line.

Dogwoman

School Daze

Hello.

I wanted to issue a blanket apology to all seven of you who come here on a regular basis looking for the mocking and satire.  My posts have been spotty because,well, it’s that time of year.

That’s right, they’re back! I am frantically getting ready for another round of angst and inattention. All of my time is spent looking for a good quality red marker. My motto is: If it doesn’t read, it must bleed.

So, as the days wear on, I hope to pick up the thread and pillory public figures for fun and amusement on a daily basis. Bear with me as we make this important change over from carefree summer days to slogging through papers that were obviously written ten minutes before class started.

Oh the Humanity!

Dogwoman

Getting A Leg Up

Hello.

I wish I had concentration like this.

Honestly, how do you not notice a missing body part?

Dogwoman

The Devil’s Own

Hello.

In looking over my stats and graphs and charts it would seem that many of you were unhappy with my comments on Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner or whatever she called herself. I thought I would explain myself with a little historical perspective. History being what it is and all too often ignored, the crimes that Jim and Tammy Faye committed are currently being repeated on a larger scale.

In the 80’s a new behemoth of religious claptrap grew itself a movement called Televangelism. “Christian” broadcasting grew to enormous proportions headed primarily by Pat Robertson, Jim and Tammy and Jerry Falwell. Their individual and collective messages centered around the idea that everyone who didn’t share their beliefs were going to hell and those who did should give them money to prove it. They set up nonprofit organizations that built hotels and theme parks. Or at least that was the idea. Very little of the money went to the actual building of anything and a great deal of it went into the pockets of the leaders of those organizations. It was a giant scam that took advantage of ordinary people and their belief systems. Each of those who headed one of these Televangelist shows grew wealthy off the idea that you could in fact buy your way into heaven. People paid for healing via the television. Those who could afford it gave thousands of dollars to expand these so called ministries only later to realize that they had been mercilessly taken by a bunch of snake oil salesmen. Not one of those so called ‘ministries’ had managed to retain their non profit status. Once the whole thing blew up everyone of them, Falwell, Robertson and the Bakkers found themselves on the receiving end of an IRS enema.

Now my problem with Tammy Faye, outside of the fact that her group held people hostage through their belief in God, is that while she had some IRS difficulties, she never actually did any time for the crimes both she and her husband committed against so many people, many of them sick or old. No, Jim is the one who took the heat and she swanned off into the sunset. She got a divorce and claimed she knew nothing about it. Bull. Those two were inseperable and it is well nigh impossible that she was unaware of what was going on within the business that she helped build. As for the rape allegations and alleged payoff, my guess is she was fully aware of that too. While I find all of those who engaged in the Televangelist movement revolting, I save my deepest ire for Tammy Faye because she should have admitted her complicity. She should have served time and didn’t. Instead she married someone else and tried to regain the life she once had with Jim.

And now in this century we have a repeat of that history. In the building of the so called nondenominational mega churches. These churches promise all kind of goodies in the after life for a nominal fee in the current life. They are getting fat and happy off the same promises of healing and redemption that the Televangelist movement made. Only instead of Bakker we now have Haggard. A man who roundly and soundly condemned all homosexuals as evil and was himself found with a male prostitute.

I know that money and religion all through history have gone hand in hand. A quick look at the Crusades and the amount of money they generated gives historical perspective to current activities. However, I think that the modern version is much worse as we have more than one religious system now.

We can now make choices about our beliefs and how we engage them. People who hijack those choices to play on the fears of the naive, the hopeful, the devout and the old in order to gain themselves wealth and power are the lowest form of life. And those who refuse to acknowledge their crimes once they are caught don’t deserve any sympathy or understanding, pre or post mortem.

Dogwoman

An American Renactment

Hello.

The American People: Mr. President, what is that you have behind your back?

Prez: Wha?

AP: Don’t act like you don’t know what we’re talking about. Come on, out with it.

Prez: It’s nothing. Just a bag, dad.

Ap: Just a bag. Mmmm. Let me see it.

Prez: No.

AP: Give it.

Pez: No. I don’t gotta. I got privilges, priviligdes, privateline, No.

AP: You give it to me this instant Mr. Man or there will be consequences.

Prez: Fine. Here.

AP: What is this? Is this a wiretapping scam? What are you doing with a FISA regulated program?

Prez: I was just playing with it a bit. Tweaking it.

AP: Great, look at this. You’ve got AT&T, Verizon and Yahoo all tangled up in it. What a mess. This’ll take forever to sort out. What? What is this? Is this a war? You have a war in your bag. You know you’re not allowed to just have a war.

Prez: I got permission.

AP: From who?

Prez: People.

AP: What people?

Prez: People..mumble mumble

AP: ‘Scuse?

Prez: Fine. God. People I might have lied to.

AP :This is just embarrassing. How are you going to explain this? Look at this will you? Suicide bombers everywhere, oil all over the place..oh great, half the continents aren’t even speaking to us. Is France giving us the finger? Nice. Oh, and Russia too, what a surprise. We’ll just give this back to Congress to fix. You are in soooo much trouble Mr. You just wait until we get… Oh my lord, is this the Constitution? What the hell happened to it ?

Prez: Cheney said I could do whatever I wanted to it.

AP: It’s all mangled. Half the civil liberties are missing. Where are they?

Prez: I hid them.

AP: Well, you better give them back. What is this giant stai- is that barbecue sauce? On the Constitution. You got barbecue sauce on the nations oldest document?

Prez : I was hungry.

Ap: You were hungry. And busy while we weren’t looking, apparently. You are a naughty President. I’ve a mind to take away your Executive Privileges. And your veto. I just don’t know what we’re going to do with you. We’ve tried and tried. Well, I’m waiting, what should we do with you?

Prez: What? I wasn’t listening.

Dogwoman

The Fact Is…..

Hello.

I love a little online fighting as much as the next disgruntled blogger. Who doesn’t like to sit in front of their machine and watch adults verbally slug it out while throwing back copious cups of joe? No one. We love it.

What I love is the multitude of facts everyone slings around to back up their position. These days the truth is like a bible quote. You can pull a fact out of your ass and it probably isn’t far off. One fact says one thing and another says the complete opposite. Take for example the fight between Michael Moore and Dr. Gupta from CNN. Gupta’s main problem with the film Sicko seems to be the facts. Although Moore’s facts are not really that different from Gupta’s own fact finding mission, Gupta cites that Moore’s are taken from different sources therefore they are ‘fudged”. Okay that’s kind of crap, but that’s not really my point. My point is Gupta uses the idea that his facts are the correct ones to insinuate that Michael Moore is a liar. And so does everyone who has an axe to grind.

With information so easy for everyone to access, the truth is a moving target. What is true for one person may not be true for another. But thanks to the Internet, we can all find facts to back up our point of view. I’m a leftist and I tend to find ‘facts’ that support my personal ideals, like Bono is a miscreant, George Bush is useless in any official capacity and Ted Haggard is gay. However, the right wingers out there can find things that back up their point of view, like Bono could be the messiah, George Bush is doing a great job and Ted Haggard is gay.

Facts are no longer the property of the intellectual elite. They are public property and the public, as they do, is tramping about looking for ones they like. There is no longer any standard of measurement for truth as Edward R. Murrow would have known it. Now it’s an information free for all and anyone can use the ‘fact’ to make a claim or state a position, even if it’s completely bogus. Look at the conservatives who are worried about the American Psychiatric Association stating that homosexuality is a natural state and can’t be ‘cured’ or changed. Those conservatives have facts and we all know they’re full of shit.

No really, it’s a fact. FOS, all of them.

Dogwoman

It’s Like A Heat Wave

Hello.

Hot, so very ,very hot. Pant, pant, pant. Water. My small, not very tidy kingdom, for a glass of water..pant, pant,. Oh god, dying, shriveling, curling, baking.

We in the North don’t do temperatures over 70, the way those in the South close their schools at the first sign of a rumor of snow somewhere near them at some point in time. It’s a regional thing.

I hate global warming. I like the global part, it’s the freaking warming I could do without.

Too close to passing out to post properly. Maybe tomorrow.

Dogwoman