You say you don’t want a revolution?

The latest person I heard to diss the Wall Street protesters as un-American is Herman Cain. Who?? Oh, him. Gosh, I so value his opinion. Do he and others think that greedily making money at the expense of others is American while protesting is not? Please reread your grade school history books on how the American Revolution started – it was started by revolutionaries. Thus the name; it isn’t the American Greed Monger Event.

Protesting takes place all over the media 24/7. Whether it’s Coulter or Obermann, the standard MO is to protest against the other side with the buzzwords du jour. That’s America, where you’re entitled to state your misguided claptrap all day. If that ain’t American as apple pie and the flag, then move somewhere like Saudi Arabia if you appreciate silence more than protests.

The Calm before the election storm

I refuse to pay attention to the Republican candidate horse race until it’s officially one year before the election. That gives me one more month to ignore the insanityfest. But it’s been hard to ignore it totally – that would mean I’d have to ignore the web, tv and radio. So I have had to endure hearing about it, knowing that it is going to get crazier from here on out.

 I do give everyone credit for being in the politics game, even if I don’t care for their ideas. That’s a freedom for which people are trying to overthrow their rulers around the world. So in a few weeks, I will take out the earplugs. Until then, I’ll enjoy the peace inside my head.

Modern Version of Reading Tea Leaves

It’s the modern version of reading the tea leaves: checking Tweets for signs of what celebrities are really saying. What, the NBC Today show hosts wondered, are we to think of Ashton and Demi’s tweets. Are they having trouble? Which is fine – I feel the morning “news” shows are misnamed – sensationalizing rules, – so my expectations are low. But seriously, Ann Curry brought in two “experts” to discuss what the couples’ Tweets really mean! Their Tweets are generally so lovey dovey and now they aren’t, is he too young to be a stepfather to three and on and on with the pop psychology. Does he have a mistress? Gosh how cryptic it all seems. Will they break up or stay together? This really only matters to the two of them. What bothers me more is that I used to think Ann Curry was a real journalist.

Starbucks Loses a Star

The naysayers that cry “it’s the end of customer service! The consumer has to do all the work itself” must have been to the Starbucks near my office. While waiting for my double tall, one pump, pumpkin spice latte with a twist of lime, I see a new dispenser for the thingies that the Starbucks employee USED TO put around the cup so you didn’t feel the heat of the coffee. But she handed me the cup and it was naked, without the thermal thingy! Without a word too, like, “we so love you and don’t want you do burn your hand. Please take a thingy. Unfortunately some cost cutter decided it was taking too much of our minimum wage salary to put it on for you.” I was utterly shocked and felt it a knife in the heart of my faith that Starbucks cares whether my hand burns or not! The nerve of this corporate entity, forcing me to lift a finger. So Starbucks becomes like the local Food Town where you have to bag your own groceries. Will we have to start brewing our own macchiatos? Will it anger me enough to stop me from going there? If you’d tried our office coffee, you’d know the answer is no.

All the bologna about a Weiner

I once read that politicians tend to have a similar personality type: mucho full of themselves and thus delusions of grandeur. Seems to fit with Weiner. How else could such a scrawny dude feel that anyone would want to see pictures of him in any stage of undress — heck, even clothed? What enables him and his ilk? This is a problem in our electronic world: too many megalomaniacs with devices smarter than they are. Surely he’s not the only one behaving badly today, he’s just the only one who got caught. But, is this so awful? None of us are pristinely perfect, and if his voting record shows he’s actively involved in creating legislation, then should he keep his job? Just so he keeps it in his pants – his cell phone, that is.

Livin’ in an ADHD world

Sometimes I wonder if the world community can “all get along here.” We don’t take enough time to stop and think, not enough stopping to really absorb someone’s meaning, too much fast reaction, instant this, gotta check that, oh yeah, I forgot I gotta call him. Check Fox, MSNBC, CNN. Is it caffeine overload combined with the expectation of instant everything? Our brains are wired for so much intelligence. If I can’t stop in my busy busy busy workday to absorb the meaning of a 12-line poem, then we’re all in trouble. Focus, pocus, hocus, crocus (such nice flowers). It’s worldwide ADHD or something like that because I’ve never taken the time to Google to find out what the hell ADHD really entails. Later, gotta go check my iPhone.

Irritation with radiation

If you see any dolphins or other sea mammals and fish and pearl divers with an extra limb or some other strange defect, blame irradiated water from the ailing Japanese nuclear reactors going into the ocean. It’s irritating that a. they don’t have more sense, b. they don’t have more options, c. they don’t have a plan and d., they don’t keep their environmental disasters to themselves. Can’t they contain this within their borders so no one else becomes a victim? How much should everyone worry? How close do you have to live to Japanese coastal waters to be affected? Does that put a damper on the summer vacation at the Pacific coastlines only, or is it going to make its way around the world to the rest of Oceania? New rule for nations: Keep your oil spills, meltdowns and similar problems to yourselves. Thank you.

Different scales for different folks

This one guy was nearly in tears that he’d paid 10 grand to attend the Super Bowl in Dallas and didn’t like all the snafus with seating, etc. The cost of airfare, hotel, car rental and game tickets are high, but $10,000 on a sporting event?

I had seats with a nice view of a column at the Verizon Wireless Theater, even after I’d asked the ticket agent to please not put a column in my sight line. It’s really more cost effective to get the songs from iTunes. But that isn’t the point. We go to concert to act crazy and get high on creativity. For this guy, sports really get his juices flowing. And he’s got some major disposable income.

For $10,000. I want to travel Europe for six weeks and buy land in Scotland. But I do have some sympathy for the guy. I too have been unsatisfied with purchases and event venues. Just not at that scale.

Does George B have a clue?

War, as you may have heard, is not healthy for children and other living things. Everyone gets shafted in war. Daily life is interrupted by shelling and bombing and utility cutoffs. I am still so mad that George Bush and his cronies started the war in Iraq. All those kids planning to go to college, all those business people planning to expand. So sorry, the brilliant and eloquent George Bush is at the door. Please put your life on hold. And now he is Mr. Best Seller and making a mint off his self-righteousness (instead of religious righteousness that he claims). He can float through the richness of his life without concern for providing for his family. Does it bother him how many Iraqis can’t, thanks to him?

Osama’s Mamas

I cringe at the thought of being one of Osama bin Laden’s three wives. But I’m looking at it from my cultural perspective, which is “EWWWW, grotesque!” A Muslim woman from a Yemeni tribe would think it was a great honor and would want to have his bambinos. (Do we know how many Osama Juniors are running around the globe, who, I assume, all have his cultural mores?) Could there be any aspects of life that these women and I could relate to? Here’s a guy who hung around the compound for 10 years, plotting terror, surfing for porn and watching himself on CNN. Could any women put up with that, without him once bringing home a bag of groceries? Who knows, maybe one of them was so mad at this loafer that they called the CIA.