Not-so-splended Isolationism

Reclusive parents.  Are they an issue?  Well, that depends on what they model for their children.  If they allow their children to develop their own personalities and enable them to develop social skills, then a parent’s reclusive behavior isn’t an issue.  But what happens when the parents project their antisocial tendencies in their pre-teen children?

How about when children of these parents are allowed to join social groups and start to make friends?  What happens then, when the kids are pulled from the group?  When they are not allowed to have contact with the friends they were making?  It’s not only tough on the children of the recluse, but leaves the parents of their friends lacking for answers to the question of, “why won’t they return my call?”

These parents may have good intentions, but they end up shielding their children from many things.  The cocooning is not good.  The children do not learn how to face problems, to deal with others, or to persevere under adversity.  They learn to close up, to run away.  And the friends they made end up confuse.  All because some parents refuse to face reality or accept the fact that their children aren’t reclusive like they are.  It is selfish.

It Was Just A Teeny-Weeny Error

IOTW candidate #1, week of 2/23/2009

Several years ago, when Butch Davis was the coach of the Cleveland Browns, his starting quarterback went down with an injury.  During a press conference, Davis called it a “teeny-tiny little hairline fracture of a non weight-bearing bone”.  What he was trying to say was, “move along, nothing to see here”.

The quarterback really never recovered for the remainder of the season.

What would he say today about this?   That it was just an eentsy-weentsy patch of ice?  Or that it really wasn’t all that thick?  Or that the sensor had a teeny-tiny problem?  I wonder.

Just remember, global warming does exist, regardless of how misleading the measurements and models really are.

Freedom of Speech on a College Campus

IOTW candidate #3, week of 2/16/2009

The title sounds like a painting more than a blog post. But this next candidate is a “professor” at a college. It’s a good thing he is open minded, tolerant, and accepting of other person’s viewpoints, just like he probably preaches to his students.

Of course, the story was reported by the media, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is true any more.  I could turn around just as easily and nominate the plaintiff if he is found to be, um, “less than honest”.

This Ain’t No Disco

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco
- Life During Wartime, Talking Heads

In my ongoing attempts to locate and call out idiots of all races, creeds, colors and political persuasions, I strive to avoid the super-obvious candidates for Idiot of the Week.  Some times, though, like this week, the super-obvious was too significant to avoid.

Thank you to everyone who has been a first-time visitor over the last couple weeks.   If you haven’t seen the “About” page, we present the Idiot of the Week award (mostly) once per week, some time over the weekend or Monday night.  We take nominations from all walks of life.

Feel free to nominate your candidates for Idiot of the Week.  Your candidates can come from anywhere: politics, sports, religion, media, business, and even some local doofus who should have his fifteen minutes of fame.  Like this guy that cut down trees on Earth Day.

This is not a political site, although political rants may rear their ugly head when appropriate.  However, folks like A-Rod, Barry Bonds, Sean Penn, Madonna and lesser-known equivalents deserve their day in the sun, too.  After all, politicians aren’t the only idiots.

Help us root them out.

Thanks.

The Season For Change

Ages ago, I wrote this post about my relationship with my ISP (internet service provider).  Some how, some way, the relationship lasted an additional two years.  There have been cycles where I’ve called their customer support and talked to “Bob”, or “Nick”, or “Joe”, even when their accent says their name is really Sundeep or Anup.  The customer support is always the same: check the modem, check the router, reset the modem – “well, what did you change?” – retry the modem, THEN submit a ticket for support and have the problem cleaned up for anywhere from a couple weeks to several months.

We are at that stage again.  If I were to be diligent – which I’m not in this case – I could likely tie each degradation in service to major equipment upgrades.  However, the equipment upgrades did not upgrade my response times (digitally or verbally) or improve my internet service.

So, I called them again yesterday because the service STUNK again.  My wife has been re-setting the modem twice a day for the past week.  Not good, especially during Christmas.  I got in touch with Urai, who told me to reset my modem, try again, blah, blah, blah.  When that didn’t work, I asked him for a new modem.  I could get one, but only if I made a twelve month commitment to the ISP.  Fat chance.  Or, I could buy the modem for a mere $80.    Nah, free works for me, please.

The level 1 support rep could not help me.  Hence, I gently reminded him about the 3-4 tickets I submitted about similar issues over the past two-plus years, and indicated that I will be leaving the service in the amount of time it takes to find a new one.  We are purposely TV-challenged at home, and don’t want cable or satellite, so finding another ISP seemed to me to be a daunting task.  Mostly because I have to change our e-mail address at all the stinkin’ places we do stuff online and with family and friends.

At that point, Urai decided I should talk to his manager, “Nick”.  The dude didn’t help, but definitely sounded distressed each of the times he called back and I was still having problems.  Things seem to be okay now; however, because of word that the ISP is changing their service practices with their residential customers, and the fact my family does way too much online to deal with, we started the conversion to generic e-mail and away from ISP-based e-mail in preparation for us going elsewhere.  Wish us luck!

Earthlink, you are my Idiots of the Week.  You should have won this award many times over.

But wait, there’s more…I’m in the giving mood, being this is the Christmas season and all.

It’s snowing where I live.  No problem there.  People are scraping the snow and ice off their windows.  No problem there, either; a driver gots to do what a driver gots to do.  Something I saw on Sunday morning took the cake.  The driver of a sedan scraped the driver side half of their rear window.  Yep, tried driving like that.  Nothing like adding to his blind side, or making his rear view mirror pretty much useless.  Dude!  You are my runner up.  Congrats!  Next time, maybe you can take the extra 45 seconds and scrape the other side of the window, too.

And last, but not least…the sports team that played in front of 72,000 brown and orange seats – half of them brown because of the jerseys and jackets of their supporters, and half of them orange because no one sat in them – the Cleveland Browns are my third place winners.  They managed to take a city that supports football in good seasons and in bad, and turn its fans apathetic.  Way to go!

On a serious and sincere note:  Merry Christmas everyone!

Predictive Blogging

Let’s just get this out of the way now, shall we? Considering all anyone will hear at the Thursday night VP candidate debate is either crickets or “blah, blah, blah”, I figured I would pre-declare this week’s Idiots of the Week.

Of course, as your dear editor and publisher of SMISLT, unlike the major media outlets, I will be more than willing to correct my mistake if I am wrong. But, for some ungodly reason, I don’t think I have to worry about that.

Let’s hit the candidates first. No, silly, not the VP candidates, the Idiot of the Week candidates (in no particular order):

• Sarah Palin – will parrot John McCain’s campaign lines, especially since playing the maverick would be completely out of line with McCain’s vote on the Senate version of the non-bank bank bailout bill.
• Joe Biden – will say lots of dumb things. After tonight’s Senate vote, he really does not need to say anything of substance anyway, since McCain and the other Republican Senators handed Obama the keys to daddy’s car.
• The RNC / McCain campaign – just for existing
• The DNC / Obama campaign – for existing as a facade, and not showing America how Obama would preside over this great nation.
• The MSM – Biden will be awesome as the affable goofball – you know, your oddball uncle? – yet still manage to look Vice Presidential. Palin will look like someone that did not go to an Ivy League school, and is out of touch with Washington DC politics. But they will get it right that Republicans sold their minions down the river.
• Fox News – McCain is doing the right thing for the country, and conservatives just need to stick with him.
• The zealots in both parties, via blogs – libs will say they are 3.5 months away from living in utopia; conservatives will say they are that far away from living in hell.

What I wrote initially upon drafting this post, prior to the Senate vote:

The winner will end up being none of them. It will be President George Bush. Why? Because practically everything will point back to his failed policies, his inability to support his base, and his overwhelming urge to “reach across the aisle” with people who really don’t want to co-habitate the Federal government. Even when things should also point to Clinton, Bush I, and Carter, they won’t. They will point to Bush, because he is the magnet, whether right or wrong. But I say, “Mostly right.”

Strike that; reverse it. Not because the sentiment was wrong, though.

What I say now is:

The winner will be the Republican Party, for failing to realize, yet again, that you don’t negotiate with terrorists and you don’t turn your back on your constituents. They just don’t get it, and deserve to die as a party. I’d say the same about the Democratic Party, but they will eventually steal the name “the American People’s Party” (or is that the People’s Party of America?) when over 60% of the voting population declares that all big industry should be controlled by the legislature.

Maybe I’ll be the idiot; regardless of how this whole mess turns out, I’ll still spend 90 minutes of my Thursday night watching the debate, if only to confirm how far the Republican Party has fallen.

Lost Among the Hostas and Weeds

Yesterday, my son was tossing a tennis ball against the garage door, attempting then to catch the ball in his mitt. This allows him to play while I’m close by working on something that needs to get done in the back yard. He’s gotten pretty good, but occasionally has that one throw that manages to scoot under the fence and travel towards the street, or that one throw that ends up in the hedges next to the driveway.

On this occasion, it was the latter, and it was on one of his first throws. I heard the requisite, “Oh, man!” from my son. It’s funny hearing that coming from the voice of an undersized six year old. But I digress. He did not watch the path of the ball, but knew it landed somewhere among the hostas and weeds growing in front of the hedges. He did not want to look for the ball. He gave a cursory review of the area, then wanted to declare the ball lost. I explained to him that, since he lost the ball, he had to find it.

I’d like to have the same talk with our executive and legislative leaders. Somewhere along the line, they were playing catch with the Constitution, and happened to lose it among the hostas (U.S. growth and progress of all sorts) and tall weeds (politics). Every four years, both parties give a cursory look around the area claiming to seek this lost Constitution; however, as soon as electioneering is over, both parties declare to each other that the ball, er, Constitution, is lost, even though they like to remind their constituents that they will be the party to find it.

Congress has contributed greatly to the current bank problems, thanks to their desire to turn being qualified for a bank loan into an issue of discrimination. Since Congress doesn’t know what to do, they are taking their ball and going home. Of course, you have to get down into the rubble to see that Congress has made the bed they lie in (especially Democrats, it seems – I guess they do know where their bread is buttered, eh?).

Not that I want Congress to fix this; rather, I’d like them to take their filthy paws off the whole mess.  Same with the president.  What is the opposite of an alchemist?  That’s what I declare our political leaders to be.  They win the Idiot of the Week Award.

And Josh Howard, you typify what is wrong with this presidential election.  You get runner up.

Drawn Like a Moth to a Light

Over the past year and a half, I finally got completely dissatisfied with the two big-box political parties. You can read my rants and musings at my old blog.

Let’s just say that I am amused at the, um, “stuff” that is passing for political discourse and politicking these days.

• Oprah, who is all about empowering women, won’t have Governor Sarah Palin on her show until after the presidential election, but had no problem stumping for Senator Barak Obama early in the primaries.
• Obama criticizes Palin’s lack of experience. That’s like the pot calling the kettle, let’s see now, rainbow.
• Women on the left – that is, liberal women – want Palin barefoot and pregnant. That doesn’t sound very progressive, does it?
• Media bias is so evident, even a liberal can notice it. Well, maybe not.

But, wait, there’s more!

• Disenfranchised conservative Republicans are flocking to the PaliMessiah, because she has a conservative background.
• Palin’s views on immigration are not well known. Remember, many conservatives had issues with John McCain because he wasn’t reaching out to his conservative base, and because he was pro-amnesty. So, half the problem still exists – maybe.
• Half of the Republican ticket is now as inexperienced in tenure (heck with the actual job responsibilities, the common American doesn’t care to understand the difference) as the Democratic ticket.

And we’re still roughly sixty days away from the election!

I avoided television and radio coverage of politics as much as I could since the primaries ended. Yet I find myself eerily fascinated by the current bout of lunacy spewed by both parties and their willing accomplices in the media – including the internet pundits.

It’s kind of like seeing that accident scene on the other side of the freeway, and needing to look even though you know you will be repulsed or sad for looking.

Nah, it’s not like that at all. Even though I look at the accident, I still made the choice to look. For me, the current goings on are more like a moth’s instinctive attraction to lights. I am just waiting to get burned. But until then:

• It’s been fun watching kind, peaceful, loving liberals libel and slander a woman. Remember in the olden days, when we were taught not to hit a woman – physically or figuratively? Hillary Clinton’s rival in her Senatorial election lost many brownie points for merely asking her to commit to a position in writing. The nerve of him! Yet it is okay for people to hit the girl (Palin), and subsequently drop-kick her into oblivion. Now, you can’t hit the black guy. I guess he doesn’t have the balls to stand up for himself.

• It’s been wild watching dissatisfied, conservative Republicans – you know, the ones that can’t understand Obama’s cult of personality – deign Palin the dual savior of the conservative movement and the Republican party. They complain that Obama’s mind-numbed robots will do anything he says, much like they would currently do anything for Palin.

• It’s been crazy listening to journalists forget how to recognize sarcasm when it doesn’t work to their benefit.

• It’s been routine watching politicians attack character instead of responding to the valid charges levied against them. After all, what does a community organizer do, and why is that position more relevant to “presidential experience” than Governor is? I still haven’t heard an answer.

• It’s been scary watching and listening to the media identify how someone living in a small town, attending a non-Ivy league college, and trying to raise a relatively normal family is automatically not qualified to run for political office.

• It’s been telling, having the race card played by the black candidate, and the sexism card played by the female VP candidate.

• It’s been weird, listening to the Democrat’s Presidential nominee compare himself to the Republican’s appointed Vice Presidential nominee. Something just doesn’t jive there.

Worst of all, the last two weeks of activity focused the whole political spotlight on the two big-box candidates. You can just about wipe out any chance of third party candidates getting any coverage by the media because they are now irrelevant.

I think I now know how Nero felt as he watched Rome burn.

This week’s Idiot of the Week award is a reverse class action award. It is given to all of the Democrat and Republican Party leadership, the big-box news organizations, the celebrity glitterati, and the internet pundits who are doing their damnedest to curtail independent thought, and turn this Presidential election into another “who do I hate less” competition.

Independence Week Idiocy

It’s almost Independence Day.  And there’s nothing more patriotic than celebrating the idiocy that freedom brings with it.

Okay, so we really should be celebrating the birth of our great country, and remembering all those who have sacrificed their lives so that people, today, can act like idiots.

Let’s start with the singer who couldn’t sing the Star Spangled Banner.  Oh say, I can’t see what my contract says.

Then we’ll continue with these two bozos.  I haven’t yet determined if they are equally stupid, or if one is more stupid than the other.

Finally, we will consider the only thing more patriotic than baseball, hot dogs and apple pie: big government.  One of Cleveland’s City Council members is recommending that the Council reduce their size by four councilmen, while another says the Council should be reduced by six.  Considering the population of the city continues to decline, this is really a good idea.  Well, at least to those Councilmen who don’t consider it racist.

Happy Independence Day!  Your winners (losers?) will be announced after the holiday.

Bonito Bandito

“Everybody knows
that the world is full of stupid people”
Banditos, by The Refreshments

It must be hard being one of the beautiful people. I wouldn’t know. The guy in this story might think he knows. I decline to offer an opinion; after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Even if the beholder is the local police force that has access to the bus video. How’s that reflection holding up for ya, fella? You’re so vain, you probably think this post is about you.

I wonder how he will look in a zebra suit? Or in bright orange?

Dude, you just became the Idiot of the Week! Congrats, you didn’t even have to steal this award.

You wear it well.

And, the two runners up?  The lady who sudokued her way to a mistrial in Australia.  (Yes, I realize I just verbed a noun.  Oops, I did it again!)  And also, the fine journalist who penned the article, for quoting the bozos that he did.  It’s not enough to simply enjoy the challenge of a puzzle any more, or to attain a sense of accomplishment, is it?  How selfish of us puzzle-people!  I guess that includes all doctors, engineers and computer programmers, too.  And all those geeks at NASA.