White Christmas Is A Scam

WARNING! FRAUD ALERT! If you are about to snuggle up in front of the DVD player to watch WhiteChristmas, be warned that it is not a Christmas movie. Except for the opening minutes where Bing Crosby sings the song, and then, of course, the closing minutes where the women in those beautiful red robes join in the singing, there is no mention of Christmas. None. The plot has nothing to do with Christmas. The story line is not about Christmas. Except for one brief mention of doing their show on Christmas Eve, NO ONE SAYS A WORD ABOUT CHRISTMAS in the entire movie. It’s a scam.

These movies are more about Christmas than White Christmas because they mention Christmas or have more Christmas decorations in them:

Die Hard

Lethal Weapon

Dirty Harry

Gremlins

Trading Places

Goodfellas

When Harry Met Sally

Edward Scissorhands

Brazil

Batman Returns

The Godfather for Pete’s sake.

Or even Life Of Brian.

I’m not saying White Christmas is not a good movie. I’m just asking you to not be fooled. Watch Crosby sing White Christmas on YouTube if you must, but then go watch a real Christmas movie, like Steve Martin in Mixed Nuts. You’ll thank me for it. Ho ho ho.

Bunker/Paulsen: No Worse Than Anyone Else

 

My slogan for the 2008 presidential election was “Anyone But Hillary.” I got my wish there, but I should have been more specific.

I am no fan of our current president, nor was I too pleased with the one before him, or especially the one before that. Like you, I’m tired of all the mudslinging and acrimony in politics. It’s all just posturing, at best, but mostly it’s just a bunch of lies, spread by an all too willing, lazy, uninspired media. Both parties are out of touch with Americans, so as far as our day-to-day lives go, there is little difference between a Democrat or a Republican in the White House.

 

Which is exactly how they and Congress want it. Our politicians, especially at the national level, learned a long time ago that if they can keep common people like us bickering between ourselves over relatively minor issues, they can do as they please. “They keep us doped with religion and sex and TV” is how John Lennon described it. That Chick-Fil-A spectacle is a perfect example. While we fight about that, we forget about or have no energy left for the real issues that are dooming us as a country, like rising unemployment and a multi-trillion-dollar debt.

Which is exactly how they want it. Infighting prevents us from remembering that this is our country, not theirs, and this is our government, not theirs. Petty bickering stops us from uniting, stops us from fighting the bigger issues, together, stops us from being good citizens.

 

Both parties are as guilty as the other, just as corrupt as the other, but we as citizens, we as voters, have to take the blame. Whichever party wins the presidency in November, little will change because both parties do what is best for themselves, not what is best for the country, not what is best for we the people.

In the photo, I’m wearing a 1972 “Archie Bunker For President” t-shirt. I’m old enough to remember Pat Paulsen’s 1968 bid for the presidency on the Smothers Brothers show. As I see it, we wouldn’t be any worse off electing them.

 

 

 

The Bunker image came from here, and the Paulsen from here. You might check Youtube for some Paulsen videos. The guy was funny.

 

30 Years Later But Still Burning About Missing Game 7

 

I have three Lou Brock autographs, all gifts from my older brother, who was big into baseball collectibles in the early 1980s. When I say big, I mean he had more than 250,000 baseball cards, including a Mickey Mantlerookie card, and hundreds of autographed bats.

 

Gary Jo had a booth at a card show where Brock was one of the celebrities signing autographs. He got several balls signed, and gave me one because he was a nice guy, and we were, you know, brothers.

 

He gave me a framed autographed photo for Christmas.

 

But the bat he gave to me purely out of guilt. We lived two houses away from each other, and went to quite a few Cardinals games in 1982. So when he bought two tickets to each of the four home games in the World Series against the Brewers, I was sure he would take me to at least one. It got to be Game 7, and I was so sure he would invite me that I called in sick to work and waited by the phone. The call never came. My brother, my only older brother, took some guy named Dan to Game 7 of the World Series, in St. Louis, which the Cardinals won. The party in the streets lasted for hours afterward, and I wasn’t there. I was at work, where I called in not sick after all, watching the game on a small black-and-white TV that I smuggled in to the plant.

To make it up to me, Gary Jo gave me this autographed Lou Brock edition Louisville Slugger, that Brock had actually used in games. It is a beautiful piece of wood, blonde, sleek, perfect for my grip and swing. A work of art. One of my favorite possessions.

 

But it still doesn’t make up for Game 7.

How USA Today Headlines Are Deliberately Screwing With Your Head

Scanning the headlines on this page, USA Today, August 23, 2012, it is obvious that we are in serious economic decline. If you read the copy, however, that’s not the case. Why is it reported that way?

 

 

One snippet of the always fluid stock market shows a 30-point drop over a few hours. It was up to13,292 a few days later.

 

 

The 2000s were hard on the middle class in that 60 percent of those who left went up in income level, above $118,000. So apparently not just the rich get richer….

 

 

Placed under the middle class decline article, but above the fold, the impression is more doom, gloom, despair. But the article is about how the stock market has been within one point – one point – of matching the level it was before the “financial crisis” of 2008-09, and within 1,000 points of the all-time high. Which sounds like a full recovery to me, but not according to USA Today.

 

 

Yes, HP desktop sales are down, but only minimally, simply because we are less and less of a desktop world, as everyone knows. Apple picked up the slack, so wouldn’t that be a wash for the economy? As for the $8.9 billion reported loss, $8 billion of it was the result of HP buying another business, not slumping sales. Why would USA Today mislead us like that?

 

A non-story based on minutes from a meeting weeks earlier, back in July. The Fed isn’t going to step in, at least not before “late 2014,” so why scare us like this?

 

 

Mullaney, Taylor, And Pew: More Reasons Not To Trust USA Today And Other Measly Rags That Bash Successful Americans

 

If you read a headline that says “2000s hardest on middle class,” you’re going to assume that economics aren’t too good for millions of Americans classified as middle class. Right? Well….

That’s the approach USAToday takes in the August 23, 2012, article by Tim Mullaney. The first six paragraphs tell us how dismal the past decade was for those who used to do pretty well. Now, according to Mullaney, 29 percent of “middle class Americans say they are still cutting back and having a hard time paying their bills,” and “one in six reported trouble making rent or mortgage payments,” and “the middle class got smaller.”

 

Lacking a credible source, Mullaney quotes Paul Taylor, vice president of Pew Research, the company that conducted the poll. (My journalism instructor would have slapped us for such sloppy, lazy reporting.) Taylor says it is no longer true that middle class Americans enjoy “a rising standard of living,” and that this was the worst economic decade since World War II. To prove it, Pew says that only 51 percent of Americans are middle class, compared to 61 percent in the 1970s.

Well, that does indeed sound like bad news for the middle class. But let’s look at some of the numbers Mullaney, Taylor and Pew use, and some of the facts they seem to ignore.

Middle class is defined as households that earn between $39,000 and $118,000 per year. Having been in that group from time to time in the past 30 years, I suggest that most households sometimes have to cut back to pay the mortgage and bills. This isn’t news.

 

What is news, if Mullaney’s numbers are right, is that 5 of 6 middle class households report not having trouble paying rent/mortgage, and that 71 percent of middle class Americans are not cutting back. That sounds like prosperity to me, you know, the American Dream. That’s great news. Why isn’t that the headline?

If the middle class is shrinking, then Mullaney’s implication is that many thousands of households have become poor. It isn’t until the next to last paragraph that we learn that 60 percent of middle class households that left the classification – 3 of every 5 families – have earned enough income to be classified above the $118,000 standard. They have become rich.

That is also good news. Why is it reported as more tragedy for American families? What is the motivation behind this negativity?

 

Disclaimer: You and I know this was a rant, to expose one small manipulative technique disreputable media can use, but what you don’t know is that I am highly allergic to surveys. The sample in this survey was extremely small, only 1,140 people. And, those 1,140 people were adults “who said they are worse off.” The cherry pickers at Pew Research don’t say how many people claimed not to be worse off. Their answers were ignored.

Weasels Loose In Our Neighborhood, Again

 

Our car was pilfered again. It wasn’t broken into, because the doors are never locked. There is nothing of value in it, other than a glove compartment filled with plastic-wrapped plastic spoons, and a Tony Bennett Duets CD that belonged to Kelly in another lifetime. I figure it is better that the thieves have easy access without having to break the windows or slash through the soft top, and if they want the Bennett CD they are welcome to it.

 

We have had waves of this crime for several years, these worthless punks who roam nighttime neighborhoods, opening car doors, taking what they find. This is the fourth or fifth time we’ve been hit. One time, Kelly lost a very nice but empty little purse, but usually they get nothing from us and we get a pile of spoons and old papers heaped on the floor and seats.

Of course, we also get that creepy feeling knowing that some slimy stranger was in our car, and we make doubly sure all the doors in the house are locked at night. Noises that usually don’t wake us become more significant for a week or so, but that feeling passes.

The police took our report, but it is unlikely anything will be done, or can be done. We know of one such hoodlum who was caught in the act of rifling through a car. During the arrest, the police discovered a handgun in his pocket, a gun he had stolen from a car a few nights before. He was found guilty and sentenced to jail, but he was incarcerated only a few weeks, despite a long and violent record as juvenile and an adult.

Doesn’t it seem to you that the weasels will stay loose if we keep letting them loose?

Sometimes Only A Brand Name Will Do (Just Ask Winston Churchill)

The TOMS shoes post got me thinking about name brands. In most cases, the known brand is not worth the extra money because most generic products are identical to and manufactured right alongside the more expensive ones. But aren’t there some things where only the brand name will do?

I have a few favorite brands, such as ConverseAll-Stars, Wilson tennis rackets, Levi’s Jeans, and Gibson Guitars. Right now I’m wearing Reeboks and Lee Jeans, because they were on sale. I play tennis with a Head racket, also on sale, and the guitar sitting next to me is a Johnson (a Johnson?) because who can afford to learn on a Gibson? In most things, it seems – clothes, groceries, most hygiene products – my loyalty is to price over brand.

But there are some things on which I do not skimp, just like Churchill having some things up with which he will not put….

In the kitchen, I only use Saladmaster cookware. It is simply the best and healthiest and cheapest way to cook, and the food tastes great because it loses so little nutrition.

Since 1977, all my cameras have been Canon. A friend loaned me a Canon AE-1 35 years ago and I was hooked for life. Even though Kelly’s wonderful Nikon Coolpix is on my desk at the moment, I would never purchase anything other than a Canon for myself.

My computer is a big ol’ HP, as are both monitors, the speakers and sub-woofer, the external hard drive, the wireless keyboard and the printer. I like HP, and likely will stay with the brand. Kelly, on the other hand, has a big ol’ iMac on her desk and a MacBook where ever she goes. She is pretty devoted, in the way raving lunatics are devoted, to the brand, and if I point out – logically and kindly – that she could have bought three computers like mine, or six times the computing power, for the same price, she starts acting all wonky, like all Apple people do when you use logic on them.

A recent preference is for Bose speakers. Over the last four years we’ve gotten the SoundDock, the SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker, and the Quietcomfort 15 headphones. I’m telling you, you have never heard music until you put those babies on and flip the little switch. The sound is stunning and absolutely personal. Don't tell anyone, but sometimes I just put them on with the noise cancelling feature on so I get a little quiet time. Oh, and don't wear them while riding your bike.

I take generic medicine, when I take medicine at all, but if I have a cold, I rely on Vicks VapoRub. It’s the best.

I use regular Zest soap, and only Zest soap, in a bar, because I like being "zestfully clean," and I use Mennen Speed Stick, Unscented.

There are also some brands that I refuse to use. I don’t Google, for example. I don’t wear Old Navy or Aeropostale or Abercrombie, which is good, my children say, because I’m not cool enough. Which, I say, proves the point about that whole TOMS shoes scam.

How about you? What are your brand loyalties?

One Hit Too Many For Pete Rose

We had good seats that day in St. Louis, five rows up from first base at Busch Memorial Stadium. Pete Rose, playing at first, chased a foul pop up our way. Don't you love being part of that whoosh as hundreds of fans stand and will the ball to land near them?

The ball was almost certainly headed for the stands, but Rose made a show of banging into the wall and reaching through the arms and hands seeking the souvenir. A boy with a glove caught the ball, just beyond Rose’s grasp. Rose intentionally smacked the kid in the face with the back of his glove, swore, and told the boy to keep out of the way. Of course, there were boos and hisses from our side of the stands, but Rose just trotted back to his position.

I don’t care how many hits Pete Rose had, I'm betting he had one hit too many. That just doesn’t seem like Hall of Fame behavior, 4,000 hits or not.

What do you think?

In case you missed it, here’s why I dislike Martha Stewart.

I’m Not Actually Pleased That Martha Stewart Went To Jail, But…

Let’s just say I’m not a member of Martha Stewart’s fan club.

My encounter with her was years ago, when I was selling jelly, the best 10 ounces of jelly that $4 would buy. I paid big bucks to set up a booth at a garden show in a large city, where Martha Stewart was the guest speaker. She made a tour of the booths (reluctantly, from the look of her), and her entourage stopped briefly at mine.

During the luncheon, one of Stewart’s flunkies came and asked if Ms. Stewart could try our jalapeño mustard with her meal. I fixed up a three-jar gift box with the mustard, our best seller, some shrimp sauce and strawberry almond jelly, my personal favorite.

Now, that’s not a big deal. It cost me $10, and I gave away a lot of them over the years. What bothers me is that Ms. Stewart never bothered to say thank you, or sent one of her people to say thank you, and I just think there is a major, fundamental flaw with people who do not say thank you.

What do you think?

Tomorrow: why I don’t like Pete Rose, either.

God Bless The Oil Companies

When I was a boy, gas stations raised prices by a nickel for Memorial Day, then lowered the price after. My dad would moan and complain, curse the local Shell station, but keep driving. This of course made money for the oil companies, but it was bad PR.

When I was old enough to drive, the ploy was the same but the ante was up to a dime. I would moan and complain, but keep driving.

About seven years ago, the oil companies came up with a scheme that made record profits and had the driving public singing their praises. Rather than raise prices 10 cents a gallon for holidays, like they had done for years, they simply raised prices 90 cents, then s-l-o-w-l-y lowered the price per gallon by 50 cents so that by the 2005 long holiday weekend, gas was cheaper than it had been in months – but still 40 cents more per gallon – and we all drove rejoicing that gas was cheap for the holiday.

It was a win-win. Right? The good times have gone on nonstop ever since.

Three months ago, local gas prices jumped 50 cents over four days. The price has s-l-o-w-l-y dropped since then to where yesterday, Memorial Day, the price was down 25 cents. Hey, cheap gas.

I shouldn’t complain, because gas where I live is 15 cents cheaper than the national average, and U.S. drivers have paid less per gallon than most of the world for a long time.

But still.

What annoys me about the constant surge and slow retreat in gas prices is that the blame is deflected to unpleasant but largely noncausal factors. Blame the hurricanes for high gas prices. Blame Iraq. Blame the government. Blame Dan Brown.

Why not blame Exxon? The world’s largest oil company, Exxon, had “the fifth highest quarterly profit for any public company in history” in mid-2006 That’s not just their history, it’s all of history. In mid-2008, they "reported the largest quarterly profit in US history" - $14.83 billion. Remember, that’s not nearly $15 billion in revenue, that’s $15 billion in profit, after paying all expences, including hurricanes.

Meanwhile, as the cost of transportation rises, the cost of EVERYTHING else goes up and up and it doesn't come down. But I'm sure the economy is good at ExxonMobile.

Perhaps this is a simplistic view, but it is a pretty simple issue. The reason the scam works is because we keep driving. And rather than complain, we praise big oil and join them in blaming weather, war and government.

Try not to think about those $15,000,000,000 profits the next time you fill your tank.