Like most Americans, for more than a decade, BWB has been anticipating this moment, the moment to end all other moments. Finally, after years and years of desperate futility, pining and craving, once again do we find ourselves in a world where the New York Knickerbockers have an ounce of respectability and even a sliver of a hopeful future. Not since the asterisk season of 1998-1999 not only a lockout year, but also the season after Michael Jordan retired for the second time, do the Knicks now seemed poised to make a run in the NBA Playoffs.
In the interests of full disclosure, I am a Boston Celtics fan, but having grown up in New York state and having watched more than my fair share of Knicks games on the MSG network back in the day, I do have an appreciation for them, at least I did when Patrick Ewing was patrolling the paint at the Garden. Mr. Ewing never received the help he sorely needed, a Scottie to his Michael, a Stockton to his Malone, a Kobe to his Shaq, and still those teams contended with (though seldom beat) the Bulls for Eastern Conference supremacy. (And don’t even mention John Starks or Coach Choker and compare them to the solid type 1A number 33 needed for his entire career.)
But now, with Amar’e Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups running the point, why is it out of the question to think the Knicks are at least the fourth-best team in the East? As things stand now, the Amar’e-led Knicks would be the six seed, meaning a face-off with Derrick Rose and the Bulls? Is it so inconceivable that the new-look Knicks will be able to squeeze out either the Magic or Hawks for the number five seed, or even the four? Perhaps it is fantasy to think this team will get to the Conference Finals this year, but is it so hard to imagine next year’s Conference Finals coming down to a Game Seven in Miami where the 2003 NBA Draft will be on display as Carmelo (number three) attempts to chase down LeBron James (number one), Chris Bosh (number four), and Dwayne Wade (number five) as greatest of the draft? Perhaps the Knicks can swing a trade with whatever God-forsaken outpost Darko (number two) finds himself riding pine in to make the reunion complete.
That being said, if this year’s Conference Finals aren’t Celtics-Heat and Lakers-Spurs, won’t you feel a little bit cheated by this NBA season?
In other news that isn’t important, which means we all care about desperately, Billy Ray Cyrus and his daughter Smiley Miley seem to be feuding. Didn’t we watch this Disney Channel show when it starred the Lohans? You see, this is what happens when parents, whether well-intentioned or not, push their children into the entertainment industry. Willow and Jaden Smith, please listen, I know you are desperate for your father's affection, but it isn’t too late. Do not let your father hijack your careers and lives any further before you can drive a car. I know you think you want to be an actor or a musician, because that was all you grew up around. But trust me, being a child isn’t so bad. After all, it is normal.
Oh yeah, and Justin Bieber still looks like a girl with his new haircut, which looks precisely like his old style, just shorter. As a man with an ever-receding pate, I could care less what kind of haircut that kid has, what offends me more is that a boy who is barely old enough to shave is singing love songs like he actually knows what he is singing about.
The NFL seems to be headed for a lockout. Why? No one really knows. Billionaires want to make more money; they wouldn’t be billionaires (or at the very least nine-digit millionaires without having a streak or two of avarice) otherwise. The players want a bigger piece of the pie, and who can blame them? They are the ones putting their lives on the line to play a game. (And if you don’t think they aren’t putting their lives on the line, I suggest you take a gander at the life story of poor Mike Webster.) This situation makes me wonder what Caesar would have done if the gladiators at the Coliseum went on strike. He probably would have slaughtered them and then brought in replacement gladiators. Thank God we have made some progress, right?
Krystal Smith, a twenty-something townie from Burlington, Vermont won a competition naming her Fastest Grocery Bagger in America. Yesterday was even Krystal Smith Day in Burlington, Vermont. No joke here; sometimes the truth is funnier than any joke one can come up with.
Anyone who thinks the New York Yankees are going to tank this coming baseball season is a fool. While I want desperately for the Bronx Bombers to implode, expecting it is like waiting around for paint to dry. Yes, eventually it will happen one of these days, but you will waste a hell of a lot of time which could be spent reading, watching the grass grow, making fun of the Mets who will surely fall apart yet again, watching "Bridesmaids," a movie which was probably pitched to some know-nothing studio executive: “Just imagine: ‘The Hangover’ but with funny chicks.” (That being said, I think Kristen Wiig is the funniest woman to ever appear on Saturday Night Live, and I will more than likely see this movie. After all, it has Sookie from "Gilmore Girls" in it.)
George Clooney admitted in an interview that he "drank the bong water." By bong water, he was of course referring to bong water and not some humorous, ironic pithy joke someone wrote for him. No folks, George Clooney isn’t the dashing, debonair cultured socialite everyone who saw Ocean’s Eleven, Intolerable Cruelty and Michael Clayton made him look like. No, he is the worst type of stoner in the world. He is the type who doesn’t know better than to disregard bong water at all costs, no matter how fucked up you are, no matter what your friends say about you, and no matter how much you are dared.
To the youngsters out there who haven’t smoked weed, don’t try it ever. But just in case you don’t heed that little piece of advice, whatever you do, heed this next not-so-little piece: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, DO NOT DRINK THE BONG WATER!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Not-so-frequently Asked Questions
Welcome all to the BWB forum, where we will try to make sense of all the news going on in the world today, and attempt to make sense of it all, paying special attention to how precisely it affects you the avid BWB reader.
So, there is peace in Egypt now, right? After all, the bad guy is gone and now peace can reign, right?
Yes and no. In a perfect world (which is what we live in, of course), the Egyptian people, who successfully ousted President Hosni Mubarak after unceasing protests which shut down and destroyed much of Cairo and other cities, would now get the chance to rule on their own and create a peaceful representative democracy along the lines of our “fair” country. As it stands now, the military is officially in control. And if you think that is a good thing, I remind you it was a strong military presence (and nominal rule) in Boston which led to, amongst other things, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battles of Bunker Hill, Lexington and Concord, and then the American Revolution.
Martial law will cease eventually in Egypt…more than likely. The last major example in the Muslim world of a military takeover of this magnitude was in Pakistan, where Pervez Musharraf took control in a bloodless military coup in 1999. He stayed in power until 2008, bringing stability (and a strong American ally) in many respects during that time, but his reign also brought strength in numbers to his Taliban adversaries. And to top it off, an arrest warrant has been issued for his alleged involvement in the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
But Egypt isn’t Pakistan. President Obama has promised free elections in Egypt this year. Do you doubt it will happen?
No, I don’t doubt it will happen. But the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned political organization in Egypt since 1954 on the basis of a provision banning any party based on religious affiliation, will be represented. Though experts state that the Brotherhood doesn’t represent more than twenty percent of the population, I harken back to two examples of minority parties taking a command of a country; two minor parties who under a different time and different place were (or should have been) considered terrorists groups. Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist group, began as a political party in 1992, and though most “experts” didn’t think they represent the people, they swept the elections.
In 1932, only 37.8% of Germans voted for the National Socialist (Nazi) Party. Though the NSDAP won a plurality of the votes, they by no means constituted a majority. And look how well that turned out.
You are just a fear-mongerer! Why would the American government support a group of Islamic radicals? Why would they allow their thirty year ally in Mubarak to fall if not to bring about a true democratic revolution?
Am I fear mongering? I don’t think so. I am simply relaying what has happened in recent history. I haven’t even mentioned the 1979 Islamic Revolution which has far more in common with the Egyptian Revolution than one would choose to believe. Then, we had a quasi-Socialist President in Jimmy Carter who called for reforms and democracy in Iran, then America’s strongest ally in the Middle East. The Shah of Iran, a brutal and oppressive man yes, but also a staunch American supporter, had the fringe elements held at bay until Carter began to subtly look the other way as small discord turned into students and activists in the streets of Teheran turned into storming of the American Embassy turned into the Ayatollah returning from Paris to create a theocratic oligarchy which brutally suppressed the people of Iran far more stringently than the Shah ever did.
Have you ever heard of Santa Anna?
Is that in California? What does that have to do with anything?
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Though there is historical discord on whether he said that or not, the quote is generally attributed to him. He was one of Mexico’s greatest men, and he knew that everything that happens, all that will happen has already occurred in one form or another.
We the People, stuck in the present time, often lose focus of what has happened. Sometimes we forget that just because we live in America now, just because life is the way it is now, doesn’t mean it will continue that way. At the pinnacle of their civilization, do you think the Aztecs in 1518 knew their society was about to crumble and disintegrate at the hands of Cortes by 1521? Do you think the citizens of Rome in AD 470 thought their Empire would cease to exist six years later?
Hey, aren’t I the one who is supposed to be asking the questions?
One thousand apologies. Please continue.
What is going on in Libya these days? Didn’t we care about that country a while back?
Apparently dismayed at their poor showing and their defeat at the hands of Marty McFly and Doctor Emmett L. Brown, we haven’t seen much from the Libyans since the days of “Back to the Future.” (More than likely this wasn’t the reason, but the 1986 Operation El Dorado Canyon, the American bombing of Tripoli which killed Muammar Gaddafi’s infant daughter, amongst others.) Back in the Reagan days, Libya was perhaps the biggest enemy America had besides the USSR. That attack was in response to a 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco which killed two American servicemen (the dreaded proportional response). They had a hand in the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 in 1988, but have been largely quiet since.
But with their neighbor Egypt on fire and in the midst of revolution, the same “youths” on twitter and Facebook have perked up and have been calling for a Libyan caliphate, amongst other things. Gadaffi, a strong man the likes of Mubarak, did what Mubarak didn’t dare do, namely firing upon his own citizens, killing untold amounts of them. He seems unwilling to release the country he has had in his grasp for decades.
Shouldn’t the United States step in and help the protesters? At the very least, shouldn’t the President say something akin to what he said about the Egyptians?
Whether or not our country should become involved, I don’t think they will. A major reason we are hated throughout the entire world is that we get to heavily involved in other nations’ domestic affairs. Most people don’t realize it, but we went to war with Libya (then Tripoli) back in the days of Thomas Jefferson. Anyone know the old Marine song, “From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli…?”
President Obama, in a vain effort to make the Muslim world like us once again (I suppose I missed the memo of when they ever actually liked us), has decided to sit this one out; in fact, I have been hard-pressed to find any comment he has made about the unrest.
Does it really matter to me if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Egypt and Libya and any other country? Like the President said, shouldn’t we let those countries decide for themselves what type of governments to have?
Yes it does matter to you. And yes, we should let them decide for themselves.
First, the latter. Nations don’t exist in a bubble. Libya has been officially an enemy of the United States since the 1970’s, but has largely been neutered since Reagan’s attack in 1986. A strong, thriving, anti-American government in Tripoli may not seem like much, but when coupled with a possibility of a strong anti-American government in Egypt, Tunisia (another of Libya’s neighbors), and the building discontent and protests on the Arabian Peninsula, it isn’t out of the question that a trillion dollar Muslim Caliphate controlling most of the oil reserves of this planet, a caliphate which considers America to be the “Great Satan,” will rise in the coming decade.
Again, you are fear mongering! Let them rule themselves the way they want to! Obama is President now, and they love Obama! He won’t let anything bad happen to us!
I didn’t hear a question due to your hysterical crying. But let me just say this: today, February 22, 2011, the price of oil jumped 8.5% in just one day. Gas is over four dollars per gallon in California, and it will only rise as more and more protests, clashes and riots happen.
It is enough to make me wonder whether this was the plan all along. Again, I know you will call me a fear-monger, but since I don’t care what you think about me, I will continue anyway. What if the President of the United States and his Google brethren, who have been proven to have had a hand in starting the Egypt riots, planned on creating massive instability in the Middle East in order to raise the price of oil through the roof as to make the “alternative/green energy” not look like such a pricey and undoable alternative. If gasoline costs eight dollars per gallon, doesn’t hydrogen fuel cells which aren’t much better, but produced by GE and other Obama supporters, solar panels which are far too pricey to be cost-effective, and wind powered turbines sound like much better alternatives?..
I suppose that makes some sense, if you believe in conspiracy theories. Does anyone else believe as you do?
Yes. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is in agreement that the protests in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, and most recently in Iran and even China should not be countenanced. And while I am not the biggest fan of Russia or its politics, any country who has leaders (including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, BWB’s favorite current strong man) who will not allow such violence and mayhem grip their country, I am behind. Russia, since the breakup of the Soviet Union, has vacillated between being run by gangsters and terrorists. It was only by quashing rebellions such as the ones in the Muslim world has Russia regained any real sense of stability.
And stability, my friends, is really all anyone can ask for from their government. What is freedom if it means you can get gunned down on the street by someone else attempting to express their own perverted form of freedom? What does the right of assembly mean when the only reason people assemble is to bring down a President, shut down a state, or grab a bigger piece of a dwindling pie?
You mentioned China. What is happening in China?
That is perhaps the best question you have asked. Nobody really knows. There have been calls for protests and rebellions in thirteen cities; they are calling it the Jasmine Revolution. But go ahead, try finding out any real information on it. The problem is that the one party government of the quasi-capitalist dictatorship led by Chairman Hu has control of all the media in the entire country. No images leave without their consent. They even have the ability to censor and, when they want to, turn off the internet for the entire population of one billion. That means: no twitter, no Facebook, no MySpace (sorry pedophiles), no Yahoo!, no ESPN.com, no Drudge Report, no Huffington Post, no live streaming porn, no Hulu. Now do you think it is a good idea that Mr. Obama have the same internet kill switch?
Who wants to give the President the power to turn off the internet?
Nobody, save the President and those currently in power obviously. That is precisely why I love watching the news of the protests in Wisconsin, which have begun to spread like the flu across this country. I wonder what would happen if there were protesters who the President didn’t support (he came out in favor of the union-backed protesters, probably because his own Organizing for America is largely behind them) paraded around the country stating they had had enough of his socialistic ways, his over-spending, his poor foreign policymaking, and his aloof shoulder shrugs at the problems of the world.
Wait a second, that happened already. Don’t you remember the Tea Baggers?
You just proved my point. When Americans protest the President and his policy, they are derided with disgusting sexual innuendos. When the protesters are union-backed, the same unions who supported the President, they are noble and are fighting for what they believe in.
Hope and change, hope and change, hope and change….
Perhaps if I say it enough times I will delude myself into giving myself hope for the future. Unfortunately, I think far too much has changed…
So, there is peace in Egypt now, right? After all, the bad guy is gone and now peace can reign, right?
Yes and no. In a perfect world (which is what we live in, of course), the Egyptian people, who successfully ousted President Hosni Mubarak after unceasing protests which shut down and destroyed much of Cairo and other cities, would now get the chance to rule on their own and create a peaceful representative democracy along the lines of our “fair” country. As it stands now, the military is officially in control. And if you think that is a good thing, I remind you it was a strong military presence (and nominal rule) in Boston which led to, amongst other things, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battles of Bunker Hill, Lexington and Concord, and then the American Revolution.
Martial law will cease eventually in Egypt…more than likely. The last major example in the Muslim world of a military takeover of this magnitude was in Pakistan, where Pervez Musharraf took control in a bloodless military coup in 1999. He stayed in power until 2008, bringing stability (and a strong American ally) in many respects during that time, but his reign also brought strength in numbers to his Taliban adversaries. And to top it off, an arrest warrant has been issued for his alleged involvement in the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
But Egypt isn’t Pakistan. President Obama has promised free elections in Egypt this year. Do you doubt it will happen?
No, I don’t doubt it will happen. But the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned political organization in Egypt since 1954 on the basis of a provision banning any party based on religious affiliation, will be represented. Though experts state that the Brotherhood doesn’t represent more than twenty percent of the population, I harken back to two examples of minority parties taking a command of a country; two minor parties who under a different time and different place were (or should have been) considered terrorists groups. Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist group, began as a political party in 1992, and though most “experts” didn’t think they represent the people, they swept the elections.
In 1932, only 37.8% of Germans voted for the National Socialist (Nazi) Party. Though the NSDAP won a plurality of the votes, they by no means constituted a majority. And look how well that turned out.
You are just a fear-mongerer! Why would the American government support a group of Islamic radicals? Why would they allow their thirty year ally in Mubarak to fall if not to bring about a true democratic revolution?
Am I fear mongering? I don’t think so. I am simply relaying what has happened in recent history. I haven’t even mentioned the 1979 Islamic Revolution which has far more in common with the Egyptian Revolution than one would choose to believe. Then, we had a quasi-Socialist President in Jimmy Carter who called for reforms and democracy in Iran, then America’s strongest ally in the Middle East. The Shah of Iran, a brutal and oppressive man yes, but also a staunch American supporter, had the fringe elements held at bay until Carter began to subtly look the other way as small discord turned into students and activists in the streets of Teheran turned into storming of the American Embassy turned into the Ayatollah returning from Paris to create a theocratic oligarchy which brutally suppressed the people of Iran far more stringently than the Shah ever did.
Have you ever heard of Santa Anna?
Is that in California? What does that have to do with anything?
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Though there is historical discord on whether he said that or not, the quote is generally attributed to him. He was one of Mexico’s greatest men, and he knew that everything that happens, all that will happen has already occurred in one form or another.
We the People, stuck in the present time, often lose focus of what has happened. Sometimes we forget that just because we live in America now, just because life is the way it is now, doesn’t mean it will continue that way. At the pinnacle of their civilization, do you think the Aztecs in 1518 knew their society was about to crumble and disintegrate at the hands of Cortes by 1521? Do you think the citizens of Rome in AD 470 thought their Empire would cease to exist six years later?
Hey, aren’t I the one who is supposed to be asking the questions?
One thousand apologies. Please continue.
What is going on in Libya these days? Didn’t we care about that country a while back?
Apparently dismayed at their poor showing and their defeat at the hands of Marty McFly and Doctor Emmett L. Brown, we haven’t seen much from the Libyans since the days of “Back to the Future.” (More than likely this wasn’t the reason, but the 1986 Operation El Dorado Canyon, the American bombing of Tripoli which killed Muammar Gaddafi’s infant daughter, amongst others.) Back in the Reagan days, Libya was perhaps the biggest enemy America had besides the USSR. That attack was in response to a 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco which killed two American servicemen (the dreaded proportional response). They had a hand in the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 in 1988, but have been largely quiet since.
But with their neighbor Egypt on fire and in the midst of revolution, the same “youths” on twitter and Facebook have perked up and have been calling for a Libyan caliphate, amongst other things. Gadaffi, a strong man the likes of Mubarak, did what Mubarak didn’t dare do, namely firing upon his own citizens, killing untold amounts of them. He seems unwilling to release the country he has had in his grasp for decades.
Shouldn’t the United States step in and help the protesters? At the very least, shouldn’t the President say something akin to what he said about the Egyptians?
Whether or not our country should become involved, I don’t think they will. A major reason we are hated throughout the entire world is that we get to heavily involved in other nations’ domestic affairs. Most people don’t realize it, but we went to war with Libya (then Tripoli) back in the days of Thomas Jefferson. Anyone know the old Marine song, “From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli…?”
President Obama, in a vain effort to make the Muslim world like us once again (I suppose I missed the memo of when they ever actually liked us), has decided to sit this one out; in fact, I have been hard-pressed to find any comment he has made about the unrest.
Does it really matter to me if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Egypt and Libya and any other country? Like the President said, shouldn’t we let those countries decide for themselves what type of governments to have?
Yes it does matter to you. And yes, we should let them decide for themselves.
First, the latter. Nations don’t exist in a bubble. Libya has been officially an enemy of the United States since the 1970’s, but has largely been neutered since Reagan’s attack in 1986. A strong, thriving, anti-American government in Tripoli may not seem like much, but when coupled with a possibility of a strong anti-American government in Egypt, Tunisia (another of Libya’s neighbors), and the building discontent and protests on the Arabian Peninsula, it isn’t out of the question that a trillion dollar Muslim Caliphate controlling most of the oil reserves of this planet, a caliphate which considers America to be the “Great Satan,” will rise in the coming decade.
Again, you are fear mongering! Let them rule themselves the way they want to! Obama is President now, and they love Obama! He won’t let anything bad happen to us!
I didn’t hear a question due to your hysterical crying. But let me just say this: today, February 22, 2011, the price of oil jumped 8.5% in just one day. Gas is over four dollars per gallon in California, and it will only rise as more and more protests, clashes and riots happen.
It is enough to make me wonder whether this was the plan all along. Again, I know you will call me a fear-monger, but since I don’t care what you think about me, I will continue anyway. What if the President of the United States and his Google brethren, who have been proven to have had a hand in starting the Egypt riots, planned on creating massive instability in the Middle East in order to raise the price of oil through the roof as to make the “alternative/green energy” not look like such a pricey and undoable alternative. If gasoline costs eight dollars per gallon, doesn’t hydrogen fuel cells which aren’t much better, but produced by GE and other Obama supporters, solar panels which are far too pricey to be cost-effective, and wind powered turbines sound like much better alternatives?..
I suppose that makes some sense, if you believe in conspiracy theories. Does anyone else believe as you do?
Yes. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is in agreement that the protests in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, and most recently in Iran and even China should not be countenanced. And while I am not the biggest fan of Russia or its politics, any country who has leaders (including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, BWB’s favorite current strong man) who will not allow such violence and mayhem grip their country, I am behind. Russia, since the breakup of the Soviet Union, has vacillated between being run by gangsters and terrorists. It was only by quashing rebellions such as the ones in the Muslim world has Russia regained any real sense of stability.
And stability, my friends, is really all anyone can ask for from their government. What is freedom if it means you can get gunned down on the street by someone else attempting to express their own perverted form of freedom? What does the right of assembly mean when the only reason people assemble is to bring down a President, shut down a state, or grab a bigger piece of a dwindling pie?
You mentioned China. What is happening in China?
That is perhaps the best question you have asked. Nobody really knows. There have been calls for protests and rebellions in thirteen cities; they are calling it the Jasmine Revolution. But go ahead, try finding out any real information on it. The problem is that the one party government of the quasi-capitalist dictatorship led by Chairman Hu has control of all the media in the entire country. No images leave without their consent. They even have the ability to censor and, when they want to, turn off the internet for the entire population of one billion. That means: no twitter, no Facebook, no MySpace (sorry pedophiles), no Yahoo!, no ESPN.com, no Drudge Report, no Huffington Post, no live streaming porn, no Hulu. Now do you think it is a good idea that Mr. Obama have the same internet kill switch?
Who wants to give the President the power to turn off the internet?
Nobody, save the President and those currently in power obviously. That is precisely why I love watching the news of the protests in Wisconsin, which have begun to spread like the flu across this country. I wonder what would happen if there were protesters who the President didn’t support (he came out in favor of the union-backed protesters, probably because his own Organizing for America is largely behind them) paraded around the country stating they had had enough of his socialistic ways, his over-spending, his poor foreign policymaking, and his aloof shoulder shrugs at the problems of the world.
Wait a second, that happened already. Don’t you remember the Tea Baggers?
You just proved my point. When Americans protest the President and his policy, they are derided with disgusting sexual innuendos. When the protesters are union-backed, the same unions who supported the President, they are noble and are fighting for what they believe in.
Hope and change, hope and change, hope and change….
Perhaps if I say it enough times I will delude myself into giving myself hope for the future. Unfortunately, I think far too much has changed…
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Caution: This Contains Thoughts on What's Happening in the World. You'd be Better Off Keeping Your Head in the Sand, Trust Me!
There's trouble in Wisconsin! Actually there is trouble in most every state in the Union, however in Wisconsin it seems to be boiling over the top of the pot at the moment. Yes dear friends, there are upwards of 25,000 protesters on the streets of Madison (an unconfirmed number probably swelled by sympathetic reporters looking for a better story) protesting Governor Scott Walker's desire to stop state employees' labor union's from collective bargaining in order to $137 million shortfall in the budget. BWB has no problem with protests, even ones manufactured by Organizing For America (Obama's own personal Brown Shirts) and the Democrat Party. At the end of the day, every American has the obligation to stand up for what they believe. However, what distresses BWB is that instead of dealing with the vote and debating it like civilized adults, the fourteen Democratic state Senators have up and vanished out of the state so a vote on the bill could not come to the floor.
Yes folks, this is America today. Imagine if, a year ago, all the Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate left Washington, DC ahead of the Obama-Care vote instead of fighting the good fight and debating with their peers on the merits of the bill before them. Good to know we can bring some of that great Middle East democracy we've been fighting for all these years to Mad City.
If you don't care about what Wisconsin does with their state labor unions, you aren't alone, but please don't think it has nothing to do with you. If this sort of weak political maneuvering has no bearing on the price of your morning latte or a gallon of gas or your taxes or your job, then you have another thing coming. Government employee labor unions have been robbing us of our hard-earned tax money at every level of government for decades, it is only now that strong-willed politicians are standing up and attempting to fight the many-headed hydra of corrupt unions.
In news you probably could care even less about, but is actually more meaningful because it will come back and bite us in the ass someday soon, more Middle East countries are dealing with heavy protests including Bahrain, Yemen, and even Israel/Palestine. They are obviously peace-loving peoples just hoping for their rights to be respected, right? Protesters are always honorable people hoping for peace on earth and good-will towards their fellow man, right? Protesters are never used as pawns by wicked men with wicked plans, right?
Did anyone ever see Beauty and the Beast, the Disney movie? Remember near the climax of the movie, Gaston led a mob against the Beast's castle? Those were just normal French villagers whipped into a frenzy by a vain, megalomanical windbag who had his own ends he wanted met, that being Belle's hand in marriage. That was just a movie, right? Scared, hungry and largely unintelligent people never panic and follow a strong leader who promises them fortune and glory if only they sacrifice their beings for his ends, right?
When Egypt was set on fire last month, the American public was bombarded with images of "peaceful" protesters attempting to "assert their rights in a peaceful manner," hoping for "democracy." Only after President Mubarak was forced out by an extended sit-in paid for by nefarious interests did we finally hear of a CBS News reporter being raped in the middle of the "peaceful" protests while the crowd chanted "Jew! Jew!" Yeah, that sounds awfully peaceful and respectful of the rights of their fellow man.
Now, Israel is surrounded by nations who are either led by terrorists who have fought them tooth and nail, or soon will be because of the inevitable falling dominoes. Syria is run by terrorists, Lebanon's government has just fallen and will soon be totally controlled by Syria, Jordan will probably have to fight the protesters like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and of course Egypt (who has the largest population and armed forces in the region).
If that weren't bad enough, it is now being confirmed that the United States will be offically rebuking Israel in the United Nations Security Council for their continued settlement building in the West Bank. It seems that Mr. Obama, officially the President of the United States, I am not entirely sure he has the United States' best interests at heart; I'm positive he doesn't have our allies best interests at heart (see: Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Great Britain). I'm half-expecting him to sign a treaty allowing China to take back Taiwan any day now.
Yes folks, the world is burning to the ground around us, and the President of the United States is the one holding the matches. President Nero, thank you for bringing the hope and change you promised; it is nice to know a politician can keep his word. After all, what better way to re-invigorate a parched plot of land than by a controlled burn?
Yes folks, this is America today. Imagine if, a year ago, all the Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate left Washington, DC ahead of the Obama-Care vote instead of fighting the good fight and debating with their peers on the merits of the bill before them. Good to know we can bring some of that great Middle East democracy we've been fighting for all these years to Mad City.
If you don't care about what Wisconsin does with their state labor unions, you aren't alone, but please don't think it has nothing to do with you. If this sort of weak political maneuvering has no bearing on the price of your morning latte or a gallon of gas or your taxes or your job, then you have another thing coming. Government employee labor unions have been robbing us of our hard-earned tax money at every level of government for decades, it is only now that strong-willed politicians are standing up and attempting to fight the many-headed hydra of corrupt unions.
In news you probably could care even less about, but is actually more meaningful because it will come back and bite us in the ass someday soon, more Middle East countries are dealing with heavy protests including Bahrain, Yemen, and even Israel/Palestine. They are obviously peace-loving peoples just hoping for their rights to be respected, right? Protesters are always honorable people hoping for peace on earth and good-will towards their fellow man, right? Protesters are never used as pawns by wicked men with wicked plans, right?
Did anyone ever see Beauty and the Beast, the Disney movie? Remember near the climax of the movie, Gaston led a mob against the Beast's castle? Those were just normal French villagers whipped into a frenzy by a vain, megalomanical windbag who had his own ends he wanted met, that being Belle's hand in marriage. That was just a movie, right? Scared, hungry and largely unintelligent people never panic and follow a strong leader who promises them fortune and glory if only they sacrifice their beings for his ends, right?
When Egypt was set on fire last month, the American public was bombarded with images of "peaceful" protesters attempting to "assert their rights in a peaceful manner," hoping for "democracy." Only after President Mubarak was forced out by an extended sit-in paid for by nefarious interests did we finally hear of a CBS News reporter being raped in the middle of the "peaceful" protests while the crowd chanted "Jew! Jew!" Yeah, that sounds awfully peaceful and respectful of the rights of their fellow man.
Now, Israel is surrounded by nations who are either led by terrorists who have fought them tooth and nail, or soon will be because of the inevitable falling dominoes. Syria is run by terrorists, Lebanon's government has just fallen and will soon be totally controlled by Syria, Jordan will probably have to fight the protesters like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and of course Egypt (who has the largest population and armed forces in the region).
If that weren't bad enough, it is now being confirmed that the United States will be offically rebuking Israel in the United Nations Security Council for their continued settlement building in the West Bank. It seems that Mr. Obama, officially the President of the United States, I am not entirely sure he has the United States' best interests at heart; I'm positive he doesn't have our allies best interests at heart (see: Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Great Britain). I'm half-expecting him to sign a treaty allowing China to take back Taiwan any day now.
Yes folks, the world is burning to the ground around us, and the President of the United States is the one holding the matches. President Nero, thank you for bringing the hope and change you promised; it is nice to know a politician can keep his word. After all, what better way to re-invigorate a parched plot of land than by a controlled burn?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
POEM: Pop Song
I thought of nothing valuable to write
All that came to me was assembly line trite
So I raced and paced, high from my fix
Unable to sit still with the caffeine pricks
I will finally write something with a wink and nudge
Sweeter and faker than Chinese fudge
I will give the audience whatever they please
A processed poem of ersatz cheese
CHORUS
You love to hear my great pop song
Sing about love all night long
You buy it up and I make cash from it
Not knowing this art means precisely shit.
I sing the song with a tight collar and a wide smile
Screaming throbbing women line up for a mile
They’ll all believe I can really write a song
‘Cause I coo and hit the A chord all night long
CHORUS
Rambling out nonsense like ‘Baby, oh baby you’re a classic car
Revving my heart like an engine, driving me near and far.’
You buy it fully, not because it is right
But because my ass in jeans looks hot and tight
So you go back to my hotel room after the show
Because I hypnotized you and I said so
Don’t worry my dear you won’t mean a thing
Precisely like the terrible songs I sing
CHORUS
CHORUS
All that came to me was assembly line trite
So I raced and paced, high from my fix
Unable to sit still with the caffeine pricks
I will finally write something with a wink and nudge
Sweeter and faker than Chinese fudge
I will give the audience whatever they please
A processed poem of ersatz cheese
CHORUS
You love to hear my great pop song
Sing about love all night long
You buy it up and I make cash from it
Not knowing this art means precisely shit.
I sing the song with a tight collar and a wide smile
Screaming throbbing women line up for a mile
They’ll all believe I can really write a song
‘Cause I coo and hit the A chord all night long
CHORUS
Rambling out nonsense like ‘Baby, oh baby you’re a classic car
Revving my heart like an engine, driving me near and far.’
You buy it fully, not because it is right
But because my ass in jeans looks hot and tight
So you go back to my hotel room after the show
Because I hypnotized you and I said so
Don’t worry my dear you won’t mean a thing
Precisely like the terrible songs I sing
CHORUS
CHORUS
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Back With Some Ramblings....
BWB has been on hiatus for a number of weeks, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been active. In fact, I have been more active these past two weeks than I have since this summer, and it has caught up with me. I have spent more time on my back in bed than Paris Hilton. At least I am having a better time of it than Lindsay Lohan, who seems destined to be this generation’s Dana Plato. There’s still time LL, maybe you should meet with Dr. Drew so he can exploit, I mean help, you before it is too late.
I am so glad that people have Lindsay’s problems to concentrate on; after all it would get to real and worrying should they have to watch some more fake protests in Egypt. After all, caring about what happens in the Middle East is not only uncool but also unimportant because those uncivilized countries have problems like this all the time, right? And since protests in the streets, an angry citizenry calling for a change of government is something only third-rate, Third World countries have to deal with, right?
Oh wait, you mean Italy is in turmoil too? Yeah, it turns out their Prime Minister has a liking for underage prostitutes, and sex parties; life imitating a Stanley Kubrick film (at least so say the allegations). I don’t really understand what the problem is; he is Italian, powerful and rich, should we really expect anything different from him? So long as he isn’t indebted to the Mafia and bumping off the Pope I really don’t have much of a problem with him. Since Italy is now in the European Union, which all but neutered the official Italian government, does that mean the solution to deal with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is to geld him?
According to Wikileaks, whose information has been so correct you haven’t heard one solid denial by this government which has held up, not only did both Presidents Bush and Obama undermine President Hosni Mubarak by training and funding the rebel leaders who were the ones who staged the protests which “erupted out of nowhere” (which is the biggest lie the media isn’t covering), they have also related that President Obama gave away British nuclear secrets to "ally" Russia. I shall leave the legal debates to others, I also won’t even mention my personal feelings on the matter (which should be obvious to anyone who knows me) but instead I will ask this question:
Is everything America’s enemies say about us true?
If America were a person, it would be the woman at work who is friendly and giving to anyone and everyone they encounter and hit it off with only to stab them in the back as soon as they leave the room. You know the type, hell I work with the type, dated the type, loved the type. No wonder I still love America. We stabbed Egypt in the back by supporting the leaders of a rebellion to overthrow our thirty-year ally. And then we sold out the nation we have the strongest political, social, and historical ties in order to get the new START Treaty with Russia signed (a treaty which more than likely won’t be ratified by the Senate, thus making it inert) we didn’t actually need. Why? For what purpose?
In other news, the Packers won the Super Bowl. Upon looking at the brackets, I knew there was a hugely distinct possibility this would happen. First, they got to play a sagging Eagles team who peaked two weeks before the Wild Card Round. Michael Vick, the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year (as if there was any doubt) didn’t put up too much resistance. With the Seahawks upset of the Saints, the Packers then went to Atlanta, where they played the Falcons tough earlier in the season, while they were not much more than a Mash unit. After bowling over their only real competition, they got to go back to Chicago and face the Bears with Jay “Trust me, I was too-injured to play” Cutler in his first real playoff game (the previous week’s game against the Seahawks only officially counting). The Pack stomped through them, not much of a surprise to anybody, except those optimistic Bears fans (are there actually such things?) As for the Super Bowl, well…to be honest, I was far too drunk to remember clearly how it all turned out besides the fact that the Rapist lost the game with his terrible interceptions. You are correct Big Ben, when you said you blew it. Or maybe that was what the girl in Georgia said? Or was it the one in Tahoe?
So, I don’t want to sound emo, but since this is my blog and I can write about whatever the hell I want to, I feel obligated to mention the fact Valentine’s Day is coming next week. Not only do I not have a date, which is par for the course (28 Valentine’s Days, one date) it got me thinking: how many single women do I even interact with on a vaguely regular schedule? It was pretty simple math: eight. When I discount the women I work with (because the dumbest thing I could do is date a woman I work with…again…) the number becomes two. One won’t talk to me, with good reason, and the other works at a Starbucks I rarely ever go into. In fact I only included the latter because I wanted to beef up my numbers a bit. Looks like it is a box of chocolates, a bottle of wine and a Red Box on Monday night for me!
It isn’t like it is Death Valley for me. I did make out with a married woman last week (an action I’ve regretted since it happened), and I came home from my sister’s birthday party a few days ago with a woman’s number in my pocket (a woman I can’t remember to save my life). I am also very interested in a woman who is otherwise attached. Yeah, it breaks my heart a little every night thinking about the fact she sleeps in the same bed of some other guy every night while I pine away like a teenager. Wow…I really am emo. My apologies to anyone who read the last two paragraphs.
The winter-spring sports season is finally upon us. It is the most jam-packed and least anticipated of the three sports seasons I follow, but the sheer amount of goings on make up for the fact my two favorite sports are off. The seasons are as follows:
Winter-Spring Season:
Begins: The moment the Vince Lombardi Trophy is handed out.
Ends: With either the Lakers of Celtics hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy
Signature Events: NCAA Basketball Tournament, end of the NBA and NHL seasons, plus their great playoffs, the now-annual “Will Tiger Woods win another Major?” debate
Biggest Disappointments: NFL Draft and Baseball Spring Training only because they make you pine for the real thing without delivering anything close to the level of excitement they promise.
Summer Season:
Begins: When baseball becomes the only sport actively playing in July and August
Ends: After the Red Sox are eliminated or until Week One of the NFL Season, whichever comes first
Signature Events: Baseball playoffs, humidity, ripping Alex Rodriguez to shreds for no other reason than because he is Alex Rodriguez, optimistic hope the Jets will win it all
Biggest Disappointment: Boston Red Sox, New York Jets
Football Season:
Begins: If the Jets are good, it begins at the Draft or the Combine or whenever the impending lockout ends; if the Jets stink, whenever the baseball season winds down with the cup check that is a Yankees world title
Ends: Next one will end with Mark Sanchez being named Super Bowl XLVI MVP
Signature Events: Weeks 1-17 of the NFL Season; thirty minute discourses with everyone from your boss to your barber to the douchebag kid who doesn’t bend his Chiefs hat’s brim about what a great/stupid idea it was that the Eagles/Titans/Vikings/49ers changed coaches/switched quarterbacks/went from 3-4 to 4-3 or vice versa.
Biggest Disappointments: BCS, and by extension the greatness of the college football season
I leave you now with one of the things I have been working on while not writing anything for this lovely website. I wrote this poem, it has a meaning, but I am not sure everyone will get it. It is called Orange Blossoms:
Cooing of a floating dove
Orange blossoms blooming on the mountains above
Rising sun waking, despair away in a shove.
In the alighted valley, and the world thereof
Now shines the light of my fitted glove
Now how to be worthy of?
Endowed with the blessing of your ?
I am so glad that people have Lindsay’s problems to concentrate on; after all it would get to real and worrying should they have to watch some more fake protests in Egypt. After all, caring about what happens in the Middle East is not only uncool but also unimportant because those uncivilized countries have problems like this all the time, right? And since protests in the streets, an angry citizenry calling for a change of government is something only third-rate, Third World countries have to deal with, right?
Oh wait, you mean Italy is in turmoil too? Yeah, it turns out their Prime Minister has a liking for underage prostitutes, and sex parties; life imitating a Stanley Kubrick film (at least so say the allegations). I don’t really understand what the problem is; he is Italian, powerful and rich, should we really expect anything different from him? So long as he isn’t indebted to the Mafia and bumping off the Pope I really don’t have much of a problem with him. Since Italy is now in the European Union, which all but neutered the official Italian government, does that mean the solution to deal with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is to geld him?
According to Wikileaks, whose information has been so correct you haven’t heard one solid denial by this government which has held up, not only did both Presidents Bush and Obama undermine President Hosni Mubarak by training and funding the rebel leaders who were the ones who staged the protests which “erupted out of nowhere” (which is the biggest lie the media isn’t covering), they have also related that President Obama gave away British nuclear secrets to "ally" Russia. I shall leave the legal debates to others, I also won’t even mention my personal feelings on the matter (which should be obvious to anyone who knows me) but instead I will ask this question:
Is everything America’s enemies say about us true?
If America were a person, it would be the woman at work who is friendly and giving to anyone and everyone they encounter and hit it off with only to stab them in the back as soon as they leave the room. You know the type, hell I work with the type, dated the type, loved the type. No wonder I still love America. We stabbed Egypt in the back by supporting the leaders of a rebellion to overthrow our thirty-year ally. And then we sold out the nation we have the strongest political, social, and historical ties in order to get the new START Treaty with Russia signed (a treaty which more than likely won’t be ratified by the Senate, thus making it inert) we didn’t actually need. Why? For what purpose?
In other news, the Packers won the Super Bowl. Upon looking at the brackets, I knew there was a hugely distinct possibility this would happen. First, they got to play a sagging Eagles team who peaked two weeks before the Wild Card Round. Michael Vick, the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year (as if there was any doubt) didn’t put up too much resistance. With the Seahawks upset of the Saints, the Packers then went to Atlanta, where they played the Falcons tough earlier in the season, while they were not much more than a Mash unit. After bowling over their only real competition, they got to go back to Chicago and face the Bears with Jay “Trust me, I was too-injured to play” Cutler in his first real playoff game (the previous week’s game against the Seahawks only officially counting). The Pack stomped through them, not much of a surprise to anybody, except those optimistic Bears fans (are there actually such things?) As for the Super Bowl, well…to be honest, I was far too drunk to remember clearly how it all turned out besides the fact that the Rapist lost the game with his terrible interceptions. You are correct Big Ben, when you said you blew it. Or maybe that was what the girl in Georgia said? Or was it the one in Tahoe?
So, I don’t want to sound emo, but since this is my blog and I can write about whatever the hell I want to, I feel obligated to mention the fact Valentine’s Day is coming next week. Not only do I not have a date, which is par for the course (28 Valentine’s Days, one date) it got me thinking: how many single women do I even interact with on a vaguely regular schedule? It was pretty simple math: eight. When I discount the women I work with (because the dumbest thing I could do is date a woman I work with…again…) the number becomes two. One won’t talk to me, with good reason, and the other works at a Starbucks I rarely ever go into. In fact I only included the latter because I wanted to beef up my numbers a bit. Looks like it is a box of chocolates, a bottle of wine and a Red Box on Monday night for me!
It isn’t like it is Death Valley for me. I did make out with a married woman last week (an action I’ve regretted since it happened), and I came home from my sister’s birthday party a few days ago with a woman’s number in my pocket (a woman I can’t remember to save my life). I am also very interested in a woman who is otherwise attached. Yeah, it breaks my heart a little every night thinking about the fact she sleeps in the same bed of some other guy every night while I pine away like a teenager. Wow…I really am emo. My apologies to anyone who read the last two paragraphs.
The winter-spring sports season is finally upon us. It is the most jam-packed and least anticipated of the three sports seasons I follow, but the sheer amount of goings on make up for the fact my two favorite sports are off. The seasons are as follows:
Winter-Spring Season:
Begins: The moment the Vince Lombardi Trophy is handed out.
Ends: With either the Lakers of Celtics hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy
Signature Events: NCAA Basketball Tournament, end of the NBA and NHL seasons, plus their great playoffs, the now-annual “Will Tiger Woods win another Major?” debate
Biggest Disappointments: NFL Draft and Baseball Spring Training only because they make you pine for the real thing without delivering anything close to the level of excitement they promise.
Summer Season:
Begins: When baseball becomes the only sport actively playing in July and August
Ends: After the Red Sox are eliminated or until Week One of the NFL Season, whichever comes first
Signature Events: Baseball playoffs, humidity, ripping Alex Rodriguez to shreds for no other reason than because he is Alex Rodriguez, optimistic hope the Jets will win it all
Biggest Disappointment: Boston Red Sox, New York Jets
Football Season:
Begins: If the Jets are good, it begins at the Draft or the Combine or whenever the impending lockout ends; if the Jets stink, whenever the baseball season winds down with the cup check that is a Yankees world title
Ends: Next one will end with Mark Sanchez being named Super Bowl XLVI MVP
Signature Events: Weeks 1-17 of the NFL Season; thirty minute discourses with everyone from your boss to your barber to the douchebag kid who doesn’t bend his Chiefs hat’s brim about what a great/stupid idea it was that the Eagles/Titans/Vikings/49ers changed coaches/switched quarterbacks/went from 3-4 to 4-3 or vice versa.
Biggest Disappointments: BCS, and by extension the greatness of the college football season
I leave you now with one of the things I have been working on while not writing anything for this lovely website. I wrote this poem, it has a meaning, but I am not sure everyone will get it. It is called Orange Blossoms:
Cooing of a floating dove
Orange blossoms blooming on the mountains above
Rising sun waking, despair away in a shove.
In the alighted valley, and the world thereof
Now shines the light of my fitted glove
Now how to be worthy of?
Endowed with the blessing of your ?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)