Fun With Play-Dough

Yes, Dubyah, it is a recession. I know it’s hard for you to understand, because you’re still able to put a nice big T-bone on that BBQ, but for most of us, the pickings are slim. Now that we’re all getting a little desperate, some people are, of course, overdoing it. 21-year-old Charles Fuller from Fort Worth stole a check from his girlfriend’s mother, filled it out himself, and tried to cash it.

Maybe he would have gotten away with it, except for the fact that he wrote it for $360 billion.  Crime doesn’t pay; it just highlights how stupid you are.

Speaking of, a Japanese man, who was employed by the city of Kinokawa, logged on to porn sites 780,000 times in eight months. Strangely enough, he wasn’t fired: he was demoted and received a pay cut.

And the romantic wedding stories just keep coming: a New York couple was arrested after a disagreement with the band; they trashed their congas, and the bride destroyed a speaker. The police used stun guns on both the bride and groom. I have to ask, is trouble with the law the bridal accessory du jour?

Dress, check; tiara, check; arrest warrant, check.

Aargh! Here I’ve been worried about Huckabee and Romney all this time, now suddenly there’s talk about McCain picking Thompson for his running mate. What? Say it isn’t so!

Go back to Hollywood, Fred! Go solve some fake crimes!

Still wondering why the economy is doing worse than Britney Spears’ career? According to the latest report, the military is $295 billion over budget.

The President, as Commander in Chief, should be fired immediately. If any of us pulled that kind of nonsense at our jobs, we’d be unemployed faster than you can say ‘where are my taxes’.  What do you want to bet that he doesn’t plan to address this at his next speech? Guess we should stop worrying about earmarks for a while and focus on other things. Like impeachment, for example.

I see what McCain was doing this past week. Al that talk about how brash he was as a young man, how naughty and irresponsible; he’s trying to put a firm picture in our minds of himself as ‘young’. Because, recently, there’s been some murmuring about how he’s really a bit too ancient to be the President.  He shouldn’t worry; sexism and racism are much more prevalent than ageism. Besides, if he doesn’t get elected (please!) it won’t be because of his age; it will be because we don’t want a third Bush term. We’ve had enough of that.

232,000 jobs were lost during the first three months of 2008; those numbers are nothing if not intimidating. CNN raised the question what McCain would do about this. The answer is: nothing. There was some talk about providing people with better mortgages; however, that’s not even the half of it. Yes, people need homes, they also need a job with a decent salary, health care, and more; they need self-esteem and the feeling they can take care of themselves. Nobody wants to depend on government bailouts. Depending on a bailout is the opposite of the American Dream.

The state of poverty in America has been an embarrassing situation for years; the poor have been ignored for who knows how long, and things trickle up. It’s a natural progression when a country is more concerned with interfering in other societies but ignores its own backyard. We’re like parents that work 80 hours a week and then wonder what happened to our kids.

I like Hillary’s comments about having a ‘poverty Czar’ (Interesting word choice by the press). If only the government would seriously consider taking this on, really taking it on, making the poor a priority, rather than sitting around with their hands in their hair. That means identifying those that need help, because the people that really need help need it yesterday. Take the South: the whole nation was concerned about the Katrina victims for about five minutes; what’s happening to them now? That’s right; many of them are sitting around in rotting trailers, are getting sick, and are seeing now way out. Millions of kids in the inner cities are getting no education, no health care; millions of Americans live paycheck to pay check, which is hard to do when that paycheck is too small to live on in the first place.  What are the candidates planning on doing about that?

How is this still the ‘wealthiest nation in the world’? How do we measure that wealth? You can’t just look at the bottom line and make that statement; you need to look at people; individual people, and treat them as if each and every one matters. We need to go back to valuing life, each individual, each person, and stop being so selfish.  Maybe Martin Luther King’s son could fill that cabinet position.  He certainly talks the talk; maybe he can do more than that?

Meantime, grassroots movement is needed; every American who can miss a dime should go and help one other American out. Let’s show this government a good example: drop off a can of food at your local food bank. Give money to a homeless shelter near you. Donate blood. Anything. Trust me, it will make you feel better.

It is imperative that the economy gets a positive injection; now. Just watch Lou Dobbs and his incessant bitching about immigrants (yes, I take it personally) and remember how dissatisfaction with the economy led the Germans straight into the welcoming arms of Nazism. When the economy is on its ass, the foreigners get blamed; that’s how it’s always been, and that is what is happening now. It couldn’t be anybody else’s fault, could it?

Somebody needs to remind Bush that a $600 to $1200 check isn’t going to help those that are really in trouble, and tell him to come up with some better ideas. After all, it’s a few more months until that man is actually out of office; how much more damage can he do in the remaining months?

First of all, fire Cheney and give his job to somebody deserving. Then start pulling those troops out of Iraq, and use the money for something useful. I know, it’s a tired old argument, but seriously. War is expensive! Freaking expensive! Is anybody in Washington getting that? And don’t tell me this is an ideological War; we’re in it for the oil and nothing else. Imagine how much oil we could buy if we didn’t use all that money to beat the crap out of a country. And as far as Al Quayda following us home, well, if they didn’t have a good enough reason to do so before, they certainly do now.

Maybe if American tax money can be used for its intended recipients (i.e. Americans health care! Education! Social Security!) we can -as a society- stop being so scared of a few immigrant workers. It’s not as if anybody else is chomping at the bit to pick those oranges or process those cows. Don’t lie. 

Revenge of the Animals: a Florida woman was killed today when an Eagle Ray jumped on her boat and stabbed her. Attacks like this are incredibly rare, according to all the experts. Tell that to James Bertakis, 81 years old at the time, who had the same thing happen on October 18, 2006, and lived to tell. He is now known as ‘Stingray Jim’.

In other news, Bush found it necessary to defend the Iraq war. I wonder why that is newsworthy; it’s not exactly a surprise, is it? Of course he is going to defend it; what else is he going to do? Admit fault? Like hell.

What burns me is that, in spite of all this “War is Great” rhetoric, aftercare for veterans in this country sucks. PTSD, homelessness, sexual assault; we don’t want to address these problems; we just want to sit back and congratulate ourselves on how well the surge is going. A country can’t separate combat from its aftermath; what happens to the brave women and men after they get back home is part of this war. A large segment of the military has to continue fighting long after their deployment ends, and that is neither a Republican nor a Democratic issue; it is just plain wrong.

We keep hearing about the housing market, trouble on Wall Street, and the fact that the dollar is more or less on life support. All very bad things. Still, much more concerning is how the credit crunch is affecting the student loan market.

And yes, that’s not a typo: it’s a market.

Several large lenders have pulled out of the student loan business altogether. If my daughter were 16 instead of six, I’d be hyperventilating right now.

Having said that, this might be a good time to think about this whole issue surrounding student loans; nobody should graduate with a diploma in one hand, and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth in loans in the other.  The government should step up and set guidelines; better test scores and a higher grade point average should entitle anyone to have a first rate education. Washington can certainly find an earmark for that?