C.R.A.P. Sunday - New Year's edition

Catch-up Rants And Platitudes - #1
Like I indicated before, I'm just getting back into blogging. Here I'll make use of something I've seen from other bloggers - an outlet for mini-rants and messages that wouldn't otherwise be worth a post of their own. Things I've been stewing over for the past week or so and are still with me enough to need venting.

• First off, would like to wish happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year to any and all (or should I say, "both") my readers. :-) A little cliche'd, but heartfelt all the same. We have a lot to look forward to this year as a nation as well as globally - dealing with the economic crisis, high hopes for our new president, working through this recent conflict in the Middle East as well as other fronts - not to mention our own personal goals. And a whole year ahead of us to make good on those goals or to screw-'em up. At least we can vow to fight off procrastination THIS time....



• Blago - Ugh. Have long since given up hope of our Illinois governor resigning, but the taint left by his appointment of Burris as senator has been compounded by Burris's own words.
  
  Apparently, the process of seating a senator (at least, in this situation) requires signatures of both the governor and the secretary of state on a document which then goes to the senate, which then "seats" the representative in the appropriate caucus. The democratic caucus is refusing to seat any appointee by Blago for good reason - he is charged with corruption DIRECTLY RELATING TO his power of appointing a replacement for Obama. Our secretary of state, Jesse White, has refused to sign the document as well.
  
  But here is Burris in a statement to the press saying, (paraphrased:) "I have been legally appointed, I am senator - the rest is just paperwork." And on the day the appointment was made, I recall Burris saying something to the effect of "I have made it to the Senate!" Shouldn't the "elevation" to that position more appropriately be recognized as an outlet for his constituents (ie, the residents of Illinois), rather than as a personal achievement?!? He insists the corruption charges are unrelated to his being appointed, and is fighting to be installed instead of letting the legal process resolve things. To the claim that "Illinois needs it's representation" - fine, install an "interim" senator until a permanent one is appointed by a taint-free governor or voted in by a special election. Clinging to the appointment has only stained Burris further, and his refusal to consider the wishes of his constituents as well as his future colleagues proves that he is not the kind of representative I would want in Washington.
  
  Even president-elect Obama (a fellow black politician) is calling for Burris to decline the appointment - so the argument of letting it happen for the sake of keeping an African American democrat in the position should hold no weight.



• Reading - in my down-time I am getting a little better about turning the TV off (finally!) and trying to plow through some books. I guess I'll write a separate entry on this. Recently finished "Wicked," now (re-)reading the original "Wizard of Oz" to see what was based on the original work....



• In early December had a job interview for what would have been an ideal position for July 2009, and a 1 in 3 chance of getting it. Was told we'd find out within the week. After nearly 3 ADDITIONAL weeks of untoward suspense, finally learned that the position went to a different candidate. Have another interview at the end of January, and in the meantime will keep searching - but in the meantime this uncertainty and state of limbo is driving me (and the wife!) NUTS!



• Just to throw another wrench in the gears, my car decided to stop working during the holidays. Thankfully it was after the family meet-up, so no big plans had to be canceled - but it's always a pain in the ass. It is going on 12 years old, and hasn't given me too many problems overall, but I hate dealing with the service department. After hours on hold with roadside assistance and several more hours waiting on help to arrive when it wouldn't start (and a jump didn't help), the mechanics were set to abandon me because they couldn't tow my car down the parking ramp. I insisted on pushing the car to where they COULD tow it, which was much easier than they anticipated. Once at the dealer it turned out just to need spark plugs, but they tried to soak me for thousands of $$ saying the engine needs to be rebuilt, etc. And once the car was back with me it was sputtering and nearly stalling out - not something it had done before it died. Thankfully that improved over the weekend, and for now I can avoid a repeat trip to the service department demanding that they check their work.



• Poor customer service - Dec 2008 was a bad month for it. Dealing with a new health insurance company, and calling in to complain about a product - these things are needlessly frustrating. Here's my 1/2 cent on one item: Rain-x windshield wipes - don't bother with them. Still waiting on a refund. My wife wrote about it here. Apparently owned by Shell, which I will now be boycotting out of spite.



• Opinion polls and article comments - Watching the news on Jan 1st, saw them flash up between segments, "Have you already broken your New Year's resolutions? Text "yes" or "no" to ...." WTF?!? Not only was it less than 12 hours into the new year, but please, please, PLEASE tell me how / why that is "news"?! It is getting nauseating how all these "news" sources are reaching out to Joe Six-pack for input. Have you ever read the string of comments on a recent on-line news item? It quickly degenerates into name-calling and comments on spelling - not exactly an intellectual discussion. Even CNN (which I have stopped watching after the election), with Larry King and other "respectable" news anchors and commentators turning to blogs for comments from the peanut gallery - it makes me want to tune out completely. Professional commentators and analysts have earned the right (theoretically) for their opinions to be part of the "news" - for anything else I can surf the net or listen to a designated call-in show.
  

Ok - that's enough for now. This was much longer than intended. But maybe I'll stop flogging some of these topics (even if just in my head). Now off to hit the gym, to vent my frustrations in a healthier way. Happy New Year!! Good luck with any resolutions you've made.

One - ok, a couple of bad apples....

So by now the whole country is marveling at soon-to-be-former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, and the blatant cockiness amidst his corruption charges. Given the presidential election and other distractions, I had not been keeping tabs on much with respect to local politics, but my wife has been quietly whispering in my ear about the dubious character of Blago for a couple of months now. She expressed her concerns that finding a candidate to fill Obama's vacant Senate seat might not happen in the most upstanding way... but I never realized how low our Governor could go.

Apparently Illinois has a "long tradition" of corruption in the government, most recently with former Governor George Ryan, currently in jail on a six-year sentence (also for corruption) and with some officials moving for his sentence to be commuted. Now people are talking like Illinois is a haven for corrupt officials, and how glad they are to not be residents of this state.

Personally, however offended I am at these actions by our officials, I'm proud of my Illinois heritage. I won't let a couple of bad apples spoil my whole impression of this state. I look forward to January 20th, when our president-elect can strut his stuff and demonstrate the integrity we should expect from officials from the Land of Lincoln.

In the meantime, it continues to be an embarrassment that Blago will not resign. Apparently, his lawyers plan to plead "not guilty," and have indicated that a resignation would look like guilt. But I'll be waiting with bated breath while they try to explain away his machinations toward selling Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, among the other charges. Especially when they have his own voice on record from Justice Department-approved wiretaps. And on the very eve of the FBI's actions to bring up charges, we have his smug-faced invitation to have his phone lines tapped, his sincerest assertion that he is clean as a whistle.

Yeah, that one may be more worm than apple, but I'll keep my support behind the rest of Illinois. After all, if you dig deep enough there's probably not a single state that is free from its embarrassments. Not even shiny, white-frost covered Alaska. You know, that state that is so close to Russia.

Political rant #1 - gay marriage

Ever since the heavy pre-election coverage this year, I've been drawn back into the medium that captures the essence of the hot news and presents it in an entertaining format - political satire, frequently well-represented by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, both on Comedy Central.

Tonight Jon Stewart had Mike Huckabee (former Republican presidential candidate) on, and engaged him in a mini-debate on gay marriage. As usual, the conservative and liberal viewpoints were framed in different perspectives and they had to agree to disagree. The arguments at their most basic seemed to be: (C) - "We must preserve the sanctity of marriage as defined between a man and a woman," and (L) - "Gay people should have the same rights and benefits granted to heterosexuals."

It was quite gratifying to listen to Stewart present a very cogent argument, and I won't hide my own support for gay marriage. I was quite disappointed with the referenda this November that shot down attempts at legalization of gay marriage in multiple states. Huckabee made reference on the show to the "fact" that 68% of the population is against passing such legislation. I won't take issue with numbers because I have no idea how that polling was conducted, the demographics, how recently it was done, or any of those details. Most of us have heard the expression "lies, damn lies, and statistics" - and that holds true more often than not; depending on how you ask the question, let alone grouping and analyzing data, you can twist numbers to support your argument either way.

To be honest, I really don't care about the numbers because THEY DON'T MATTER. I don't care if 80% of the population is against something. Just because a group of people want something - or want to prevent something - doesn't mean that it is appropriate. The reason we have government is to protect citizens and deliver services that would otherwise be unlikely to happen. If it wasn't mandated by the government, how many of us would contribute money to pay for police, infrastructure, and other social services? How many people would put money aside for their retirement? But we accept taxes and social security deductions because that is a part of our responsibility in supporting the government that protects us. And it protects us in ways we did not anticipate over 200 years ago - look at the relatively recent strides in equal rights for women & blacks, and new protections from discrimination based on handicaps and religion. Those anti-discrimination statements in many systems include "sexual orientation" - an obvious evolution of the concept to protect this portion of our population.

It was a laughable moment in the VP debate in October, when Joe Biden went on a mini soapbox talking about equal rights for partners including hospital visitation, workers benefits, etc. - that [gay] partners will have (paraphrasing) "the exact same rights and privileges as spouses" - but when asked point-blank by the moderator if the democratic ticket was supporting gay marriage, he said no. It is a sad statement that - in order to minimize alienation of a portion of the electorate - the Democratic ticket had to set aside pushing that component of the agenda.

But at its heart, the issue really is about equal rights. If people were interested in legislating about the sanctity of marriage, we'd talk about the divorce rate and banning same-day marriage (i.e., running off to Vegas), requiring "marriage classes" (like some religions do), and maybe even raising the minimum consenting age. If the issue is really about parenting and establishing a family unit for raising children, we would talk about mandated parenting classes or even more aggressive regulations about who is allowed to procreate (or adopt), and when. (Both of these arguments are exemplified with the "Brittany Spears" example used by Stewart) We know it could not possibly be about preserving a religious definition of marriage, thanks to the separation of church and state. So what is left? What possible reason is there to deny two men or two women from legally committing to each other, and being granted ALL the legal and social recognition that accompanies that?

It seems to me to be the downside of tradition, the part that is slow to change simply because "it hasn't been that way before" or "we've never done it that way." Just because religious-based organizations oppose it, or because stubborn people or not ready to accept homosexuality as a fact of our society, does not mean that our goverment can ignore this component of our population or choose not to protect their rights on this issue.

The last point I'll make is again something well-stated by Stewart - opposition to gay marriage is often based on the assumption that it is a choice to be gay. Just like choosing to convert between religions may mean changing what you eat, or how you interact with people - "choosing" to be gay means denying yourself legal recognition of a union. But religion is one of those cardinal protections, and society is barred from denying you rights based on something that is undeniably a choice. But is homosexuality a choice? Many say no - and if you are guaranteed equal rights whether you are born a man or woman in our enlightened age, the same should hold true whether you are born gay or straight.

But again - the answer to THAT question is really irrelevant. Equal rights are equal rights. How can you select out something the law should NOT apply to?

music as art

Here is a great image (click on it to get a bigger version) - sort of a puzzle relating to the music industry. First saw this in 2006, just getting around to posting it now. Unfortunately, par for the course....






Don't scroll down yet - how many bands can you identify?

No cheating!

Ok, below is a list of what I got initially (with almost no help):

the scorpions, dinosaur jr., crannberries, the beach boys, prince, the police, iron maiden, men at work, pink, korn, deep purple, hole, radiohead, alice in chains, the eagles, nine inch nails, rolling stones, 50 cent, the gorillaz, the pixies, U2, cake, queen, whitesnake, white zombie, phish, blondie, the cars, garbage, red hot chili peppers, blind melon, ratt, B-52s, eminem, green day, smashing pumpkins, pet shop boys, matchbox 20, led zeppelin, guns & roses


after looking at a list of answers, i *should* have also found (band names i recognize):

lemonheads, sex pistols (hehe), BeeGees, seal, madonna (w child, painting), crowded house, white stripes, black crowes, wings, ... maybe a few more. not too bad. many i could have guessed but did know the band names (black flag? yellowman?).

Here is a version of the answers - don't know how complete it is, and I'm not gonna bother counting if "74 bands" are listed. But I think it is a pretty cool image / puzzle. Hope you like it too!