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Three Years

Wow, it has been three years since I have last posted on this blog. I can't believe that I abandoned it. I think that with the beginning of the new year, I will start up again.

The President and The Pope

"In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred and that each of us is willed, each of us is loved, and each of us is necessary,"  - President George Bush during Pope Benedict's visit to the White House.

 

While I agree with this statement without bias, I have a very hard time reconciling the words with the person who spoke them. I find it to be very hypocritical.

 

I heard once during a recorded lecture given by the author Caroline Myss that truths don't need to be qualified in order to be truths. The moment you add a but, an except for, or an only if to the phrase the truth is negated.

 

It seems that dear old George has plenty of those to go around. Apparently, all human life is sacred and should not be debased except for terrorists, enemy combatants, and convicted killers. We can just dunk them, torture them, and execute them because they are less than human. They don't count.

 

I don't want to give the impression that I condone the behaviors of these people or that I am having some sort of knee jerk liberal reaction to the indignities heaped upon the oppressed masses, but I try to keep my beliefs consistent. It is very difficult to do so and has caused me to reassess my positions on certain issues from time to time when apparent discrepancies are brought to my attention.

For The Birds

Recently, my daughter told me about an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition where the family had been living in a chicken coop. Much to her surprise, I told her that her grandparents had once lived in chicken coop.

During World War II my Grandpa John was stationed in Fallon, Nevada. Naval housing was in short supply, so he, my Grandma Eva, and my Aunt John lived in a converted chicken coop. I told my Dad how suprised my daughter was by this fact. Later, my Dad looked at some old photographs that he had scanned into the computer and e-mailed me one of the chicken coop.

I can not imagine living in a chicken coop in Nevada, but they all made do.

How to Beat the High Co$t of Living

Over the weekend, I watched a movie that I haven't seen in probably about 25 years. It was the 1980 comedy How to Beat the High Co$t of Living starring Jane Curtin, Susan Saint James, and Jessica Lange. The three women play housewives, in various states of financial distress who plot to steal money from their local mall during a mall promotion where the days receipts are put in a giant money ball.

 

I didn't remember a whole lot about the movie except for the fact that I thought that the big money ball was really cool, Jane Curtin has to ram her car through her garage door when her power is shut off, and the fact that I was really suprised at the time that Jane Curtin revealed her breasts (I had to have watched this movie on HBO because I doubt ABC would have aired breasts during their weekend movie presentation). Of course after watching the movie again, I now realize that she used a body double.

 

Back in the early 80's it would have been just another silly caper movie to me. I don't think that the financial hardships of the era would have really registered. My parents did a good job of shielding me from things that I didn't really need to worry about and believe me, I would have.

 

But, now as an adult I recognize a lot of the financial problems in the movie. On some level it is interesting how in 25 years some things haven't changed. Jane Curtin's character comments that it is unbelievable that the price of gas went up 9 cents in one week. What is scary is that I saw the price of gas go up 15 cents in one day at my local gas station.

 

Now I am not advocating going out and robbing your local mall. I always found it odd that the protagonists of the movie were doing something clearly illegal and you are rooting for them to succeed. I would imagine that my mom would have objected to that, after all she didn't like the fact that Ferris Bueller and his friends got away with their day off. Still when you see houses sit on the market for over a year because they can't sell, hear about 100's of homes in one subdivision in foreclosure, or have to make adjustments to your food budget to pay for a tank of gas, something is seriously wrong.

Cicadas

Well, this year is the 17 year return of the cicadas in the Chicago area. I don't remember too much about the cicadas last time. Even though I was 16 at the time, they never really made a showing in my neighborhood. The only time that I saw them was during a trip to Brookfield Zoo at the tail end of their showing when their carcasses started to pile up.

 

This time, they are much more apparent. My son gleeful went through our backyard collecting the moltings of the cicadas that were stuck to every conceivable surface. While I have only seen the occasional part of a cicada in my yard, I sure can hear them. This weekend, I happened to go to the zoo again and the sound of their mating call was unbearably loud. I felt bad for the poor animals having to put up with the incessant noise.

 

Nowadays, we know the cycle of the cicadas in the Chicago area and their overwhelming numbers are something we are prepared for. I wonder if the first settlers to this area freaked out when they were invaded by millions of horny, noisy bugs.

 

My daughter asked about the life cycle of the cicadas and I told her how they spent 17 years underground, emerged for a month or so, mated, and died. She replied, "What a boring life." I would have to agree. Imagine waiting 17 years to have sex and then die. In geeky circles, there is always jokes about how in Star Trek, Vulcans only have sex once every seven years are that is far more frequent than the average nerd has sex. Ha ha! Still it would be much better to be a pointy-eared Vulcan with a seven-year-libido than an ugly bug, that lives underground just to wait 17 years for the chance to have sex.

Girlfriend

I have been terribly remise in actually writing anything in my blog lately. I suppose that it has something to do with the fact that the weather is actually nice and I am not cooped up in the house anymore. It may also have something to do with the fact that I actually partially have a life now. While most of my life still revolves around my kids, which sadly means that I know far too much about Disney Channel's programming, the rest of my life is pretty busy with my girlfriend. That sounds totally weird to me. I am  33-years-old with two children, a dog, a minivan, and a mortgage. Somehow, saying that I have a girlfriend  makes me feel like I am in high school again. Part of that is good, the feeling of youth again, but the other part that sucks is just sounding like a teenager. I wish that there was a better term for girlfriend when you are in your thirties, but oh well, I will still take it.

 

 

Greensburg, Kansas

I am not going to spend much time here repeating much of what has been said about the tornado that destroyed Greensburg, Kansas. We all know it was a horrible, destructive, deadly act of nature.

 

I could complain about the fact that much of Kansas' National Guard resources are in Iraq right now and that puts Kansas and every other state in a precarious position when it comes to disasters. But, I don't feel like writing an anti-war polemic.

 

What bugs me is the ABC news video I just saw on the internet of King George's, I mean President Bush's visit to Kansas. The idiot didn't even get the name of the town right, calling it Greenburg, Kansas. Boy that really gets me confidence that things will be set right there, when the President doesn't even know the name of the town he is in.  I wonder if he can even find Kansas on a map.

 

My ten-year-old daughter, just did a social studies oral report on the state of Kansas. Even she, a nervous fourth-grader, got the name of the town right.