They're going to go Completely Bonkers

If (When) President Obama is re-elected, it will be a clear vote against the status quo, the old rich white man running everything way we have conducted politics for the last 236 years.  And when this happens, the rich, Koch brother types, conservative people in this country (as well as the huge number of racist redneck voters who continue to vote against their best interest when they vote repube) are going to go apeshit crazy.  While I want the president to win, and I think a Romney presidency would be the absolute worst thing for this country, I am also afraid that if the president does win, someone may assassinate him.  They will not be able to stand the fact that he will be in power.  It frightens me, because you think about transformational politicians of the last half century.  JFK-Killed...Martin Luther King JR. Killed...Bobby Kennedy-Killed.  The powers that really run this country, the military industrial complex, the corporate interests, the oil companies, will not stand for their will to be overturned.

I know this sounds really conspiracy theory, but there is a dark underbelly in this country and I'm afraid it's going to show itself soon.

Sorry They got Caught

Republicans all over the country have been calling for Todd Akin to get out of the race for U.S Senator from Missouri.  This has to be the biggest turn around in political party policy ever!  The problem with all the republicans calling for Akin to stand down is that the majority of them completely agree with everything Todd Akin stands for...they are not sorry for the content of what he said...they're sorry he got caught saying it out loud.

The religious right republican party idea about rape and abortion is, if you have been raped, you have probably done something to bring it on yourself...wearing suggestive clothing, going out and getting drunk at a bar, walking to your car in a dark parking lot.  Good Christian upstanding women don't get raped.  So if you get raped and get pregnant, well, that's just too bad because you need to carry the spawn of the demon who raped you for 9 months, forever being reminded of the fact that you were obviously doing something you shouldn't have and got in trouble.  In the larger discussion about personhood or abortion, there can be no retreat from the idea that there should be no abortion because, quite frankly, the republicans are more about controlling people's sex lives than they are about protecting unborn babies (as most of the unborn they are trying to protect, those of poor women or african american women, will get little or no support once they actually draw breath).

I had a republican tell me one time when I asked how she could reconcile the idea that if her daughter got raped, the republicans would force her to carry the baby to term.  She said, "She could always get a DandC (or however you spell it)"  Unfortunately, the republican party platform would not allow for any type of protection against a pregnancy after rape, including the morning after pill which would only keep a pregnancy from happening in the first place.

Todd Akin needs to stay in the race...the republicans need to dance with the ones who brung them...they shouldn't be allowed to hide behind their regret that they got caught telling the truth about themselves.

Chic Fil Hate

this whole Chic Fil A thing has just depressed me.  First of all, some of my best memories growing up are of my sister, Mom and I going to Tyler to shop at the Broadway Square Mall.  We would always say we were going to eat somewhere other than chic fil a, but every time we would walk by and it would smell so good we would end up eating there anyway.  A few years ago, I worked for the advertising agency in Dallas that handles Chic Fil A.  In fact a friend of mine was one of the creators of the cow ads (which I think have run their course but they keep flogging them on us).  Then I heard that Chic Fil A had been donating to anti gay and gay reparative therapy groups.  I decided not to eat there anymore after that.

Then one day last year, I was in Dallas about to meet my sponsor, and was hungry.  I thought I would try the chic fil a at the corner of Northwest Highway and Skillman in the new shopping center there.  I thought, "What could one chicken sandwich hurt?"  As I sat down to eat, I noticed several managers sitting at a table talking to a young African American woman.  I overheard the managers saying things like "you are always absent and you didn't call in the other day when you were going to be absent blah blah blah"  It was almost as though they were hectoring her; they just wouldn't let it go.  Now, I have managed in a retail situation before, and I understand that there is a huge turnover in those jobs, mainly because they don't pay much.  When an employee no showed/no called, the next time they came in, we would just quietly tell them they were fired and allow them to leave.  But this group of managers seemed to be hell bent on humiliating this girl.  Then, as she walked out with her boyfriend, the boyfriend got angry because, turns out, she was pregnant.  He was white, she was black, they weren't married, she was pregnant.  I can just imagine what the good Christian company thought of that.  The managers ended up calling the police because they were afraid the boyfriend was going to go fed on them I guess.

I ended up writing a letter complaining about what I had seen, the manager sent me an email apologizing.  But what I also noticed that day was how unhappy all the other employees of that restaurant looked.  They looked like dogs who had been kicked over and over and were cowed down.  Even if I could stand their political and religious stance, I can't financially support a company that treats its people like shit.

so those of you who ate at chic fil a Wednesday, enjoy your shit sandwiches...

PC Wars

reading some of the posts last night by people about the chic fil a appreciation day, one person wrote that she was tired of always having to be politically correct.  My thought about that is, so you'd rather go back to the time when it was okay to say disrespectful things about women, racist things about minorities?  You really think the world would be better if we all were able to make fun of people who are disabled?  If that's the case, that's not the world I want to live in...

The President's Club

I've always been interested in Presidential history.  One of the earliest books I read about the presidency or the White House was a book by a former White House usher, Upstairs at the White House which provided a view of how the White House was run and behind the scenes of taking care of the president's family.  So when I heard a book about what is informally called "The President's Club" was coming out, I knew I had to read it.

In 1953, when President Eisenhower was sworn in, Herbert Hoover suggested to Harry Truman that they form a President's club.  Yet the foundation for this "club" had already been built when Truman worked to bring Hoover back into public life after Truman took office.  For twelve years during FDR's three terms, Hoover had never been invited to the White House and was essentially ignored.  Roosevelt had even gone so far as to rename the Hoover Dam  "Boulder Dam" because of his dislike of Hoover.  Seeing how Truman worked to bring Hoover back into public life, how he assigned Hoover the task of setting up food aid for the millions of starving people in Europe after World War 2 makes me respect Truman even more than I already did.

I haven't finished the book yet; I just finished the section on Richard Nixon's torpedoing of the Paris peace talks in 1968 just before the presidential election so that Hubert Humphrey wouldn't win the election.  It's amazing to me that Johnson never told the country what Nixon and his people did because he knew that the presidency was more important than destroying Nixon (who ended up destroying himself without any help from Johnson).

If you're interested in history like I am or if you're interested in the presidency, read this book.  I will have to say that it has given me insight into how many more things can be accomplished when politicians work together rather than against each other.
The President's Club

It's All Part of a Plan

President Obama coming out in favor of marriage equality yesterday was a bombshell.  People were surprised that he would come out with this in an election year.   But I think it's all part of a plan.

Someone doesn't become President by doing dumb things (unless you're George W. Bush).  Obama wants to change the conversation, and he knows that come convention time, the Republicans won't be able to resist dragging every crazy Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachman, Pat Buchannan type onto the stage who will be so nutty that they will turn suburban voters off in droves.  Republicans already have a woman problem, a working class problem, a Latino problem, their only hope is suburban white swing voters who are more concerned with jobs and the economy than they are gay marriage.

Expect President Obama to talk about immigration reform next...

Zac Attacks Himself

Okay, so here's the dealeo about this picture of Zac Efron in Sydney with his hand down his pants. He's on his phone, he's looking at his iPad, and he has his hand on his junk. This is the classic pose of someone who is online getting a hookup and talking to said hook up on the phone. I'm not going to tell you how I know all this, but no one does that for that long if they're not talking to a jump off. And if what we hear about Zac, that he likes the boys, I can only imagine what's on that iPad and on the phone...

Emerging Tiger

Tiger Woods is back. I've been seeing him in commercials for Nike/Golfsmith that you can win a round of golf with Tiger if you enter some contest...I didn't really pay much attention to it...I was fascinated by watching what must be one of the first commercials featuring him since his wife took a golf club to his Escalade and he wrecked it in an Ambien haze trying to get away from her. Tiger also just won his first Master's tournament in two or three years. I wonder if the tail wagged the dog in this situation? Did Golfsmith have the ad ready for when he won his first major tournament? Or did the ad coming out give him the confidence that helped him win? I could probably do some research and find that out but I would prefer to just think about it...

I've never been a fan of Tiger Woods; actually, I never really thought much about him. I think the only thing more boring than playing golf is watching golf being played. I will admit that it was a car wreck moment watching his life fall apart...I didn't want to, but it was just too fascinating to watch such a manufactured persona fall apart because of a predilection for cocktail waitresses and pole dancers.

Now I'm not one to begrudge someone a way to make money. God knows Tiger probably has a big child support and alimony nut to cover each month. I just wonder if the particular Tiger shark has been jumped? Has he lost his relevance? Is he going to change the way he interacts with the media and his fans, becoming less reserved and more available for interviews that are real interviews and not love fests?

But America loves a second act and maybe this is Tiger's.

Justice for Trayvon

It's been over a month since a 17 year old boy was shot and killed in a gated community in Florida, and still his murderer has not been arrested. African-Americans are rightly angry that the confessed shooter, a white man whose father is a retired local judge, has not been arrested or charged with the crime. White people, mainly those on the conservative right and those who support non-restrictive gun laws, are saying there shouldn't be a "rush to judgement," have accused the boy Trayvon Martin of being a thug, and have even played the "reverse racism" card.

I grew up in a small town in East Texas. I know firsthand what racism looks like. I also know what it sounds like. There is no such thing as reverse racism. One has to have power to be a racist, and as a rule, African-Americans in our society, except for the Oprah Winfrey's and Barak Obamas, have no power. Laws are stacked against African-Americans (remember the higher penalties for crack cocaine possession as opposed to powder cocaine?) There are more African-American men in prison than in college. Some say, "Well, they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps; no one helped me get where I am today! I had to work hard!" Of course, the people who say that are usually white. They don't know how difficult it is to find a job when you're a poor African-American man who is the product of poor schooling, single motherhood, and may not even have the transportation to get to a job interview. Of course, I don't know how difficult it is either, but at least I recognize there are a lot of obstacles to overcome.

When we blame the victims it becomes easy to ignore the problem. Only when we look at ourselves and our culture and honestly talk about the real racial divide that continues to haunt our nation, especially but not only in the south, will we be able to solve our race problems.

Justice for Trayvon Martin would be a good way to start.

Justified

A year or so ago, I heard an interview on Fresh Air with Walter Coggins who plays Boyd Crowder on the television show Justified. The interview was interesting and I was especially interested that the show is set in and around Lexington, KY, where my aunt and cousin live. So I started watching the show last season. Not only is the main character, Raylon Givens, hot, but the acting and story lines are excellent. Think Harlan County, KY, the site of one of the most contentious labor disputes in American history, the Marshall's service, Oxycontin trafficking, moonshine and murder. This season's storyline has included Detroit mobsters and a guy who picks up rent boys and holds them hostage until he kills them. If you haven't watched it, you totally should.

The Tao of Flip Flops

It's sort of a joke that I will wear flip-flops in any weather; I've been known to wear flip flops in snow and/or ice...at least to drive in them. My feet rarely get cold so it's usually not a problem. Flip Flops are just the most versatile of footwear. If you're running around the house and your floor is dirty and you don't want to get grit on your feet? Slip on a pair of flip flops...problem solved! Need to walk that dog but don't want to put on shoes? Flip Flops are the answer! I absolutely love the freedom of flip flops, although I don't always love looking down at my jankety toes. I love the sound flip flops make, especially when I'm in Wal Mart and I'm trying to be kawntry and exaggerate the sound the flip flops normally make.

Flip Flops were popularized by servicemen in the Pacific returning from World War 2 and wore them in Japan. Ironically, my father, who served in the Pacific in World War 2, could never walk in flip flops...it was sort of funny to watch.

I don't like slides...I need that little tab of rubber, leather or, my least favorite, plastic, in between my toes to help them stay on. Slides just seem too lazy...plus, one normally can't wear socks with flip flops, and socks with sandals is just too foxy for me.

I remember when I was a little boy and we would go to the beach for our summer vacations. My Mom would buy these rubber flip flops for me to wear, and I could barely walk in them. Plus, I hated having something in between my toes! Actually I had a foot issue after watching this movie one time where a vacuum cleaner goes after a woman's toes...but that's another story. The first time I actually wanted to and was able to wear flip flops was when I was visiting my sister Patricia in Dallas one summer and she had these awesome flip flops with a sort of woven insole and padded strap for the foot. I loved those flip flops and have been looking for another pair like them for years. It didn't register at the time that I wanted a woman's shoe but again, another story.

All flip flops are not created equally. The top strap needs to be tight enough that the foot doesn't slide out when you walk...unlike these that I bought recently at JC Penney. They keep falling off my feet!

These flip flops I bought last year at Whole Earth Provision are some of the best I've ever had...

the best pair of flip flops I've ever had are ones I bought at Abercrombie...they had huge soles and were super cute...so the next time you hear that distinctive flip flop sound, think of me...

Fear and Loathing Every 4 Years

I have to admit something up front. The first two presidential elections I voted in, I voted Republican. The first time I ever voted, in 1984, when my Senior Government class went to the polling place to observe on election day, I took that opportunity to vote (much to the surprise of my fellow classmates). At 18, I was too naive to understand what exactly Ronald Reagan stood for, and part of why I wanted to vote Republican was because my parents (at least my dad) were Democrats. In 1988, I voted for George HW Bush because I didn't think Michael Dukakis was strong enough to be president. Even in 1992, I wasn't convinced Bill Clinton would be an effective president because of his personal life...he just seemed too glib by half...so I voted for Ross Perot( I know, you don't have to say it). In 1996, I voted for Clinton and have voted Democratic in every election since then. But throughout that time, up until the election of 2000, I didn't fret too much if my candidate lost. Walter Mondale had been Vice President, I figured if Reagan lost the world wouldn't end. Even when I voted for Perot and Clinton won, I figured he would somehow not ruin the country. Bob Dole wasn't my candidate, but I didn't think he would fuck things up too much if he won. But in 2000, that all changed.

I didn't like George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas. This was a guy who was born on 3rd base but thought he had hit a home run. If his last name wasn't Bush, he would be a mid-level manager at a Midland business. Here was a guy who ran three oil companies into the ground in Midland, TX, where you can barely dig a flower bed without hitting oil, telling us he would be the best person to run the country. We all see how well that worked out. I loathed Bush and feared for our country. When he won re-election in 2004 I was even more depressed, although now I realize just how ineffective John Kerry was as a candidate and a leader. In 2008, I was seriously afraid for our country if John McCain had won, because not only does he not have the personality to be president, his first major decision as the nominee was to select a beauty queen from Alaska who three years before had been the mayor of a town no one had ever heard of. I figured Obama would win, but I feared for our country if he didn't. I didn't have the same confidence that if McCain won that our country would be in good hands.

I'm starting to get the same feeling this year. Mitt Romney is the type of person who has no moral grounding and will do whatever he feels is most politically expedient. As the saying goes, a man who will stand for nothing will fall for anything. Rick Santorum is so far to the right he makes Hitler look moderate. Ron Paul is a racist and a kook.

You have to ask yourself, does a party who will put forth these types of people to run the country really deserve to govern? When (if) the Democrats win this election, they should work to split the republic party into little parts and make them irrelevant. Because the republics themselves have begun that process.

Santorum Santoruming Romney?

This...looks very similar to this...

you would think Rick Santorum would avoid creating ads with brown splatters in them!!

Fuck Chic Fil'A

I wrote this email to chic-fil'a or however the fuck you spell it today after a horrible experience in their store yesterday...I should have known better than to go into that place...no chicken sandwich is worth having that bullshit intrude into my life.

I normally don't eat at Chic fila because of your funding of anti-gay hate groups, but yesterday I had a weak moment and stopped at the new store at Skillman and Northwest Highway. One table over from me there was a meeting going on between what looked like four managers (white and hispanic) and an African American associate. Most of the conversation I coulnd't hear, but eventually one of the white guys began discussing her situation loudly, saying that she had no showed, no called on Saturday and how he had been working since he was 14 years old and how she needed to get a better work ethic. The hispanic lady was telling her that she thought she would have been able to do the job, etc. It was very uncomfortable to listen to all that. I felt bad for the girl as it seemed they were ganging up on her, with the final result that they obviously fired her. I have been a manager before and had people no show no call and when that happens, you don't sit them down in front of four managers and hector them to death before you fire them. You simply tell them when they walk in the next time that they are terminated. There was a big hint of unspoken racism in the way they dealt with that young lady. Then as she left the store her boyfriend said, very loudly, that it was funny that they were firing her after they found out she was pregnant. Then the white guy who had been the worst at hectoring her and berating her called the police because the couple didn't leave the parking lot fast enough. I will have to say that I will absolutely never again eat at a chic fila. The employees of that store looked like they were scared to death to even speak and they all looked completely miserable. I am a writer and a commentator for a local radio station and I am going to do everything I can to make sure none of my family or my 800 facebook friends ever eat at Chic fila again. When you have a company that is led by sick religious right wing nut cases that pathology obviously trickles down to the local management.

Ad Madness

I've been wanting to write this blog for a long time, but was afraid that it would end up being too snarky...

I love the AMC show Mad Men. I think part of the attraction of the show is how cringe worthy some of the misogynistic ways the men treat women in the office. I've talked to my Mom, who worked in a large office around the same time the show was set. She said it was not quite as bad as that, but that there was a glass ceiling in the company, and a woman could not expect to rise above the level of supervisor. When my Mom left in 1962, she was a claims supervisor, which was the highest level a woman could achieve. My Mom worked at an insurance company, not in advertising, but I saw a degree of this type of male centered behavior when I worked in advertising in 2005.

In 2005, I began working as an intern at an advertising agency in Dallas. I didn't have any ad experience; I had always wanted to work for this company after this guy I knew in AA had worked for them. I used some connections to get a job as a Account Planning intern. What I noticed during my time there was that advertising is a man's world. Oh there were plenty of women who worked there, and they were treated with respect on a certain level, but in the most important aspect of advertising, creative, there were few if any women. The men who inhabit the creative positions were much like comedians are...they didn't think women could bring the creativity. The jobs that most of the women had were in account services and in media. Many of the women in these jobs walked around looking like they were miserable. During my time there, only two women filled senior executive positions...one in public relations and the other in account services.

I enjoyed working at that ad agency, despite the impression I got from some of the people there that they felt their work was extremely precious. For me, I could never reconcile my quasi Marxist beliefs with my job or encouraging people to buy expensive refrigerators or shop at home improvement stores. I don't think advertising is where less than talented artists go to make tons of money. Most of the people I worked with were interesting and kind...except that one Canadian...

Now I'm not saying that advertising today is like what is depicted in Mad Men...there wasn't the drinking all day and we got to wear whatever we wanted to work...we didn't have to wear suits...but I think that the male hold on creative work at advertising agencies should be loosened. I mean, how difficult is it really to sell chicken sandwiches?

Fed up

I don't know why, but the movie United 93 is in rotation on Cinemax this week. I watched it yesterday and it was disturbing. I cried a little yesterday when the movie ended. I watched part of the movie today and at the end I started getting mad instead of sad. I thought about how chaotic the whole system for altering the authorities that there were hijacked planes, and how those people on the planes were sitting ducks, victims not only of the hijackers but of our lax security systems. At that time, most airports or airlines contracted their own security from independent contractors. Essentially rent-a-cop mall cop types were the first (and last) line of defense against the terrorists.

But what really pissed me off was something that wasn't shown in the movie, how George W. Bush ignored warnings that Al Queda was planning to use airplanes in attacks on the country. George W was too busy cutting brush in Crawford to make sure that the FBI and the airlines and whoever else could have acted had the information to act. And I kept thinking about how, if a Democrat had been in office, how the reaction by the republicans would have been. I mean, they tried to blame the 9-11 attacks on Clinton even though he'd been out of office for 9 months. Can you imagine the shit we as Democrats would still be eating from Republicans if Al Gore had been in office when this happened? And they seem to still get a pass on this and on Iraq. For these two decisions alone they should not be allowed to be in power for another generation.

Assorted Hangers On

Okay, I hate to admit this, but I'm watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians...it shows just how bored I am...but this whole show has been devoted to whether Jonathan Cheban is gay or not...well, if you have never watched any of the Kardashian shows, this is Kim's BFF who has essentially rode her coattails to minor celebrity. He has had too much plastic surgery and has no discernable talent except the ability to plan parties. Here he is...you be the judge:

So anyway, there's all this brouhaha about whether he's gay. Kim doesn't know because obviously whenever they've been together, Kim hasn't let Jonathan talk about himself because she's so self involved. He says he's never been in love which Kris, rightly thinks, means the guy is gay and isn't okay with being gay...Who really cares...what I gather from this is a: Kim takes her friends side over her husband's and b: well, I like Kris Humphries more and more because he sees the absurdity of the whole Kardashian lifestyle.

And about whether Jonathan Cheban is gay...I will quote what I heard in high school one time: He might not suck on it, but he'd damn sure put it in his mouth!

WTF News Stories of 2011

Yeah, I'm a little late with this, but better late than never...here are the top news stories of 2011 that made me go "WTF?"

"Lost" Actor Marries 16 year old"

Fifty-One year old actor Doug Hutchinson married 16 year old aspiring starlet Courtney Stoddard. Despite the inherent creepiness in a 51 year old marrying a 16 year old, when I saw them in an interview and learned they were shopping a reality show around, I became really excited. They embody what reality television should be all about...botoxed older guy, slightly crazy younger woman who makes funny facial gestures because she thinks that's "acting." Of course I wanted to ask the defenders of marriage if this was the type of traditional marriage they're trying to protect.

"Kim Kardashian Kashes In"

Again with the marriage theme, Kim Kardashian and her not black enough obviously husband earn about $2,000 per minute they are married, if one figures in the reputed amount of money she earned for her 4 hour reality show wedding. My question, am I the only one who saw a problem with this union as early as the trip to Bora Bora? Kim seems like a neurotic diva who can't sleep in a room that's too open, gets mad when she wears a $50,000 earring in the ocean and loses it, and overall is just sort of demanding and not fun to be around. I guess it's difficult carrying that whole family around on that booty.

"Michelle Bachmann fill in the blank"

The mere fact that a religious fanatic like Michelle Bachmann is considered a serious political contender just shows how far down the Republican party, and our nation has gone. With her ex-gay husband, who, when he speaks 50 yards of chiffon flows out of his mouth, runs an ex-gay ministry and her continually bringing up that she has fostered 23 children, and her desire to bring the nation back to the good old days, circa 1955, prior to Brown v. Board she is a danger to everyone who wants to see the country progress out of the 20th century and into the 21st. Although she is obviously smart (she received a law degree from William and Mary) she does everything she can to dumb down her talking points. Bachmann and her cohort, Rick Santorum (check out http://spreadingsantorum.com/ ) are a danger to the freedoms we enjoy, because they believe they are so righteous that they can tell the rest of us how to live our lives. And she has lowered my opinion of William and Mary university.

That's all...