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Yearly Archives: 2012
Mmmmmmmm…
When a person makes a pizza, apparently, that person really gets his hands in there. He kneads the dough and throws it all around if he’s really good. Then he throws on some sauce and then dips his hands into the cheese and then into the toppings and he throws the cheese and the toppings on the pizza with his hands. All while he’s doing this, he’s breathing, he’s breathing while he’s standing over the pizza and using his hands to knead, to dip, to spread your lavish toppings all over the pizza.
I sure am glad that the CEO of one of the largest pizza joints in America has assured us that he can’t afford to offer that kid health insurance.
Enjoy your dinner.
To the driver who made like Richard Petty on my right hand side despite my turn signal, seemingly on purpose to prevent my making my exit and forcing me to tootle my horn on the freeway to force my way into the lane, the same driver who then accelerated and passed me on my left only to take the same said exit, the same driver who, despite her best efforts ended up directly in front of me at the traffic light, and who at the following traffic light failed to exercise her left-on-red right of way, leaving us both stuck in the middle of the intersection, to you, I say, may you have a rewarding and beautiful day.
Lap Kitteh
What’s Up, Doc?
A surprising insight into the life of the man of a thousand voices.
Awesome.
The Evil Mysticism of President Barack Obama
I have finally found the descriptive phrase I’ve been looking for that describes the superstitious smear that President Obama’s opposition has run against him for the duration: evil mysticism.
The attempt by his opposition has been to create the story that there is something other-worldly about the President, that he is the kind of fellow you would encounter commuting on a magic carpet, and then he looks down at you and laser beams shoot out of his eyes, but the laser beams are actually barbed arrows that kill you with open chest and stomach wounds that are painful.
I was reminded by a Faced-book friend of a movie released recently that paints the President as an “anti-colonialist” and who has worked his entire life to live up to some vision of his father’s who he met once for ten minutes when he was 10. Also, the movie is really pissed about the President allegedly returning a bust of Churchill back to England, which happened, except that it was on loan and there was another one in the President’s residence.
Don’t ask me to make it all make sense to you. It doesn’t.
It doesn’t because it is part of the ongoing effort to establish the President of the United States as an evil mystic, one who should not even be talking to your children because he will beguile them with evil impulses, remember that? Remember? I do. And I still haven’t heard a word of apology because the President mentioned every wholesome thing in that speech to your precious little ones except the benefits of good posture.
I wish we could do without it. I wish we could subtract this aspect of the political discourse completely, this attempt to paint Mr. Obama as an evil gypsy with supernatural powers. I wish the debate centered instead on actual public policy. Because that might have been an interesting conversation. Instead, we have this nonsense, did you know Barack Obama can grow fangs and claws at will? Did you know he sports a tail?
It’s nonsense and I wish you would knock it off.
Anna in Fall
So I bought the most ridiculously humongous Bible at a book sale today.
I posted this on Facedbook. It did draw some response:
My lovely conservative friend who grew up with religion: I’m glad you bought it, Aaron. It kind of makes my heart happy. If you actually want to read it, might I suggest starting with the book of Mark?
Me: You assume I haven’t?
My lovely conservative friend who grew up with religion: Yeah, I assumed you hadn’t.
Me: I’ve read Atlas Shrugged, too. Doesn’t mean I’m voting for Paul Ryan.
I’m such a charmer.
My Dog’s Heart by Brooke Borel
The Final Frontier
It occurred to me this evening, too, watching Mr. Obama’s performance this evening, that a real opportunity has been missed in the course of his campaign.
He talks a lot about the need for education and training, and he hit it especially hard that we need education and training in the advanced manufacturing sector. He’s right. But there’s an opportunity he’s missed here to put eyebrows on it.
Look. You can talk green energy until you’re blue in the face. But that ain’t a sexy topic.
Now. Take five minute and watch this.
Goosebumps, right? Maybe even a lump in your throat?
If you want to get behind education and training, you can get behind green energy, fine. But get behind the space program, too. Rally your campaign around NASA and set monumental goals. We have an explorer satellite that is about to break free of our solar system and that is still sending us information. We have a rover on Mars. We have just discovered a new planet in our closest neighboring solar system that is about the same size as our own planet. If you consider how much we have learned about the universe in our lifetime, it is staggering. No, the universe is not expanding at a decreasing rate; it is expanding more quickly, a fact that confounds everything we have ever assumed.
But I digress.
Campaign behind NASA, behind the penny for NASA idea, and you will touch on many issues at once, and you will give those issues a powerful frame. Education. Infrastructure. Budget issues. Not to mention, you will align yourself with John F. Kennedy himself and you will have a powerful ally in one Neil deGrasse Tyson, the narrator of that little clip.
But what do I know.
Fred Thomas
| By the time I ended up in Kent, Ohio, life had taken a couple of turns. My folks had divorced, and I had moved from the town of my birth and where I considered to have been my home town of Lawrence, Kansas, to Topeka, Kansas, for fourth grade and to the suburbs of Pittsburgh for the first half of fifth grade.
I think a kid like that misses out on some socialization. He’s constantly introduced to new already established social constructs and has to do a lot more clawing and put up with the hazing. |  |
A kid like that is the odd kid out, and he knows it.
In fifth grade, I found another kid who was in the same boat. Fred Thomas. For much of the rest of our careers at Holden Elementary, we were best buddies, I think in large extent to that we both felt like the odd guys out. He, too, was new in the school having transferred I believe from the local parochial school. He was also biracial, something I’m sure he had to find his way through at the time. And, he was, like me, somewhat of an odd guy who I think felt a lack of foundation.
Fred could flip. I will never forget the day he demonstrated this in the playground. He jumped up in the air, flipped, and landed on his feet. Quite the athlete. But I never knew anyone more earnest than Fred. He was a nice guy. A genuine guy. I liked Fred. You had to.
He and I went to different social circles when we went to junior high as does happen. But I am full of gratitude for Fred for agreeing to be friends with the other odd man out, because I’ll tell you, at the time, I didn’t have much else.
I found out today that Fred has died of cancer. A good friend, a good man, and, once upon a time, my best friend.