FunctionalAmbivalent

Oh, Lord, What Will We Tell the Kids?

A couple of days after we got married, my wife and I took a side trip on our trek to begin my career in Hollywood to visit Four Corners. Standing in four states at once, we made out. It was a kind of assertion of our marriage, like opening a joint checking account or breaking-in the new house. We repeated the story for the millionth time a few days ago, telling friends about our non-honeymoon honeymoon.

It appears that we're going to have to go back. The Four Corners monument where thousands of people have photographed themselves standing in four states at once seems to be in the wrong place.

National Geodetic Survey officials say the Four Corners marker showing the intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah is about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) west of where it should be, the Deseret News reported.

Are we still legally married, or does this give her a loophole?

Better Buy More Christmas Cards

In two days, I have gone from having 1 Facebook friend to having 12 Facebook friends. At this rate, I will have more than 3 million Facebook friends by the first of December.

Here In Crazytown, We Believe Anything Anyone Tells Us

Excerpts from the Barack Obama entry in Conservapedia:

Obama will likely be the first Muslim President...Doctors from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons have stated that Obama uses techniques of mind control in his speeches and campaign symbols...Obama has espoused the socialist idea of "spreading the wealth" in other words raising the tax rates on business and the wealthy to a burdensome level in order to redistribute their income to low income individuals, many of whom don't currently pay taxes...The October 2008 crimes against Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson's family highlight Obama's record against law and order...Obama is the first person having ties to a known former terrorist to gain control over America's nuclear weapons...Author and blogger Jack Cashill compared the writing style of Bill Ayers' 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days, with Barack Obama's earlier 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, and came to the conclusion that Ayres had ghostwritten Dreams...Obama has consistently shown himself to be an elitist who looks down on "ordinary" Americans...Obama wore an American flag lapel pin after 9/11, but later stopped wearing it without adequate explanation. Presumably it would have hurt him with anti-military campaign donors.

And so on.

Stiff the Staff

While the modern media tend to spend a lot of time assuming we're all the kind of people who buy designer handbags to travel to five star resorts, here's a sign of the times: MSNBC reports on a Consumer Reports article about how to save on tipping.

In its December issue, which hits the stands Nov. 4, Consumer Reports suggests focusing on giving cash to those who may need it most or giving smaller gifts, such as candles or soaps.

Having worked for five years as a bartender, let me tell you: it's not the thought that counts. It's the money. That's how I got paid. If someone left me a candle or bar of soap, I'd make sure it took them a half-hour to get a drink next time they bellied up to the bar.

Because They Repeat What They've Heard Without Considering Whether It's Campaign B.S.

Squidley, again:

However, I stand by the last statement: Obama does excel at self-promotion. Two autobiographies without any particular achievement to warrant them has got to be some sort of a record!

This "two autobiographies" line gets big cheers when Sarah Palin repeats it on the campaign trail. Like much of what Palin reads off the teleprompter, it isn't true. Palin's apparent role in the campaign is to read whatever lie is put in front of her, and she does it with gusto. So:

Self promotion is, of course, a core competency for politicians, so being offended by Obama's skill at it is like being offended by a pastor's tendency to get all preachy. It's ridiculous.

Also, as a matter of fact, Obama has not written two autobiographies.

Dreams From My Father is an autobiography.

The Audacity of Hope is a campaign book which lays out his vision of how America needs to change.

John McCain, on the other hand, has written two books that could reasonably called autobiographies.

Faith of My Fathers is a memoir of his military life.

Worth the Fighting For is a memoir of his political life.

Things Not to Do

Don't wear a penis costume to your high school graduation.

For Those of You Who Think a "Guest Worker" Program Is a Good Idea

A key to President Bush's immigration reform was to have been a "guest worker" program that would allow business to continue to benefit from low-cost immigrant labor while guaranteeing that those immigrants were never granted the rights of citizenship. These guest workers would be incredibly vulnerable, without most of the legal rights the rest of us enjoy and devoid of political influence or power.

President Bush's friends, the Saudis, have a guest worker program, and here's how well it works:

The New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch has called on  Saudi Arabia to do more to protect Asian domestic workers from mistreatment.

It says some cases amount to slavery, with employers going unpunished for withholding wages, forced confinement, or physical and sexual violence.

HRW says some workers are imprisoned or lashed on spurious charges such as theft, adultery or witchcraft.

Granted, the culture of the United States is not as vile as the culture of Saudi Arabia; we don't even like it when people whip their pets, let alone their servants. But the difference between the "moderate" Republican guest worker program and the Saudi's institutionalized slavery is just a matter of degree. Creating a guest worker program of our own would surely lead to abuse, if not of the domestic help, then of factories full of workers who face deportation if their boss gets pissed at them.

Why we'd want to do this to our country is beyond me.

One of My Favorite Things

When I was a student at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, there was a t-shirt you could get that said:

University of Iowa
Idaho City, Ohio

Now the New Republic continues the joke in talking about the upcoming Idaho primary.

"The home state of Larry Craig, Napoleon Dynamite, and the undefeated 2006 Boise State Broncos may not be the top prize at stake on February 5, but given that Iowa is one of the reddest in the country, it should provide a test..."

As a Rule, I Believe That Anything That Everyone Agrees On Is Probably a Bad Idea

Rolling like a steamroller through Washington, D.C., is the "economic stimulus" package that really won't do much to stimulate the economy. I mean, realistically, it's $150 billion dropped into a $13-trillion economy; how much can it do?

The answer is: a lot, especially if you're a politician up for re-election and you want to tell the folks back home I'm doing something. Call it "panic pork," more a placebo than actual medicine, doled out to calm everyone down and make a few friends.

The irony, of course, is that we're in the mess we're in because of excess debt, and the money Congress is about to pony-up will have to be borrowed so that our consumer-spending party can keep going just a little while longer.

The President, Republicans, Democrats and the pundit class are all in agreement. Have you heard anyone question "the economic stimulus package"? I haven't.

Which worries me. Things that everyone agrees on scare me, because more often than not the things everyone agrees on -- bell bottom pants, Peter Frampton, the USA Patriot Act -- end up being things that are regrettable.

Now we're all agreeing on borrowing money to provide minor relief for a debt crisis. Doesn't that seem just a little bit nuts?

UPDATE: Now the Senate wants to throw some additional money at retirees, as a class the wealthiest group in the United States. Entirely by coincidence, I'm sure, they're also the group that votes more than any other.

So, to recap, we're going to borrow money that will have to be repaid by grandchildren to give to grandparents who, by and large, don't need it. How does this make sense?

The Best Healthcare System In the World

A construction worker with a minor head injury goes to the emergency room for stitches. You will not be surprised to know that the matter has ended up in court.

According to a lawsuit he later filed, Mr. Persaud was then told that he needed an immediate rectal examination to determine whether he had a spinal-cord injury. He adamantly objected to the procedure, he said, but was held down as he begged, “Please don’t do that.” As Mr. Persaud resisted, he freed one of his hands and struck a doctor, according to the suit. Then he was sedated, the suit says, with a breathing tube inserted through his mouth.

While he was sedated, Mr. Persaud was rectally examined. Then he was arrested for striking the doctor.