Posts Tagged → Uncategorized
Ugh… winter’s about to get serious…
Well, we’ve avoided it longer than any winter in recent memory, but forecasts are for snow by Christmas here in Minnesota. I know, I know, I live here, I should expect it and be used to it by now.
Trouble is, this winter, I’m driving in a less reliable car than I’ve owned in a long, long time. The tires are way too tread-worn, the engine’s old and the car doors don’t even lock. (Well, half of them do, but what good is that?) Heck, even the heater doesn’t work!
I’ve been thinking the best way to handle the situation is to start being smart and stocking my car with emergency kits, in case the worst happens. I think blankets, candles, matches, some non-perishable food and maybe even some bottled water would be a good start.
California’s child support situation
One of the many things that are messed up, moreso in California than anywhere else, are how child support cases are handled in that state. Was listening to the radio today and a guy called in to a talk show and shared his story.
Seems an ex-girlfriend of his, who he’d never slept with, got knocked up by another guy she had a one-nighter with. Not knowing that guy’s name, she put his in as the father and he was sued by California for child support. Noticed arrived to him late and he missed the court date, resulting in summary judgment against him for full child support.
Thy guy got the ex to recant, but the state won’t reverse the judgment because even though he’s not the dad – even the ex admits that now – the state would rather stick him with the bill than take the burden back on the state.
Missing a court date is a bugger, but at least now there are DNA testing services available that could’ve helped him prove he wasn’t the parent when falsely accused like that. The prices are lower than I expected, meaning that you don’t need to be a CEO to prove whether you’re a parent or not.
Normally, I’d say practicing some premarital self-control would prevent situations like this. That’s why this story caught my attention. This guy remained celibate with this gal and he’s still stuck with paying child support. Yikes!
Another black eye for the "religion of peace"
The characterization of Islam as a “religion of peace” is getting to be a harder and harder sell. It was bad enough a while back when death-threats were issued against a cartoonist who used an image of the “prophet Mohammed” in a cartoon; but now, in the wake of a lecture in which Catholic Pope Benedict XVI quoted a historic exchange between an ancient Pope with a Muslim cleric, Muslim extremists have done everything from promise to go to war over the offending remarks, to issuing an outright death threat to the pontiff. (Just a second… aren’t we already at war against Islamic extremists? Hmm.) Anyway, while I’m no Catholic and have no vested interest in defending the Pope’s remarks, it seems to me the public response of Islamic extremists is giving an even blacker eye to the world’s many rational and non-radical Muslims. The question is, when is someone from within the world of Islam going to step up and tell such radicals to pipe down?
The sympathetic liberal media plays a big role in stirring the pot, giving plenty of publicity only to the loudest, most radical voices. And such comments are not coming from crackpots, as the media would like to portray. Anjem Choudary, 39, is a lawyer in Europe, highly educated, and has been the driving force behind both death-threats. And yet, despite making calls for the executions of a cartoonist and the Pope, London’s Scotland Yard has presented an impotent response, remarking that the demonstrations organized by Choudary have not resulted in any violent acts at such rallies, nor have any complaints been lodged. Could that be, perhaps, because giant crowds of people calling for people to be assassinated are maybe, just maybe, a bit intimidating to call in a noise complaint on?
Now, some will say that freedom of speech is at stake here, but hold on a second, those of you who fail to understand the Constitution. First of all, Choudary is doing all this in Europe, not the U.S., so the United States Constitution simply does not apply. Second, even if it did apply, there have always been recognized limits on the freedom of speech, such as the theorhetical “Is it okay to shout, ‘Fire!’ in a crowded movie theatre, when in fact there is no fire?” The answer to that one has always been, “No!” because the result of such speech would lead directly to a panic in which folks might get hurt. Certainly, calling for the assassination of a cartoonist or the Pope falls into a similar category.
The prohibition against inciting violence has always been a tricky one to enforce, especially in the wake of so many lawsuits claiming to be protecting free-speech rights. While freedom of speech is a valuable and essential right, surely some common sense must come into play. If a man like Choudary gives a speech that calls for the Pope to be killed, how much time must pass before such an assassination occurs before one can clear Choudary of personal responsibility for such a killing? By the so-called standards of political liberalism, about the only way he might be even remotely considered responsible is if the Pope were in attendance at the speech and was struck down within a few seconds of the remark. And that’s just plain insane. While folks are “free to express their opinion,” at some point taking responsibility for what you have said has to play into the picture.
And remember, this is all over what? A cartoon, in the case of the cartoonist, and a quote, in the case of the Pope. And for this, Choudary claims, they or anyone else who insults Islam must be, “subject to capital punishment!” Some “religion of peace!” Now, Choudary is only one guy, but it must be remembered he is hardly alone and he is hardly some uneducated hick. He’s a well-educated lawyer who should know better.
In my life, I’ve run into several members of the Muslim faith. While my own religious beliefs do not mesh with theirs, on the whole the folks I’ve been around have been calm, rational people who don’t go around issuing death-threats over knock-knock jokes. They’re not extremists. They’re just plain folks, like any others; some good, some unpleasant, some indifferent, just like any other group of folks you might encounter anywhere you go in the world. That’s why folks like Choudary are such a cause for concern; they make all members of Islam look bad by their irresponsible actions.
That said, it does need to be pointed out that the liberal media’s nonstop pandering to Islamic extremists (rather than mainstream Islamics) is tiresome and often borders on outright falsehood. The media, and political liberals, are always quick to claim that there’s just as much violence and done in the name of other religions as there has been in the name of Islam.
Now, if you want to go back in history and talk about the Crusades, yeah, you have some pretty bloodthirsty acts done in the name of Christianity in general and Roman Catholicism in particular; but remember, the Crusades went both ways and it’s not like the Muslim side fought back by handing out flowers, hugging trees and singing sappy 1970s Coke commerical jingles. It was a pretty bloody series of conflicts that left both sides looking pretty shameful. It was a war over the holy land, and it was anything but holy. There’s plenty of other historical periods that make religions other than Islam look bad.
But here’s the point: it’s not the 10th century anymore. Nor is it the 16th century. Or any other. Let’s stay on point, shall we, and talk about the events of the past, oh, decade or so.
Yes, modern Christianity has extremists. When they get upset over a TV program or a newspaper editorial, what do they do? Umm, let’s see… write an angry letter to the editor? Maybe even refuse to buy products made by advertisers who support such content? But, last I noticed… nope, no calls for assassination that were glamourized, ballyhooed and lauded by the liberal media. The worst example I can think of is a couple of abortion clinics where insane folks either planted a pipe bomb or shot a doctor in the name of his or her religion. Dispicable? You bet! And in those cases, such actions were universally rejected, despised and disassociated by Christian leaders.
Yes, Judaism has extremists. Somewhere, I’m sure. Can’t really recall anything they’ve done, though, that remotely approaches that level of violence, unless, of course, you count the movie The Hebrew Hammer, which mostly was a violet assault on anyone who has a sense of humor… since the film simply wasn’t that funny. Most Jewish extremists, however, are they type who work for universities in Israel and spend their lives cooking up theories about why patinas on ancient relics prove the inscriptions are fake. In general, saying something unkind about Jewish folks or history gets you nothing more than an unkind letter from Jewish Anti-Defamation League honcho Abe Foxman, demanding a sincere apology. But calls for your assassination? Nope. And the Jewish community is pretty responsible about condemning anyone of their community who goes too far… take a look, for example, at the dreadful box office receipts for The Hebrew Hammer.
Only in Islam does one find an extremist community (tiny though it may be) that actually issues death-threats and means it. That’s unforutnate. The real problem is not so much that someone like Choudary is out there calling for people to be killed. The real problem is that no one within the Islamic community is condemning, disavowing or even disapproving of his comments. And in the end, that deafening silence is what makes it seem as though Islam is more violent in the modern world than other religions. Calling for war and assassination, simply because of a quote in a lecture? If that were a universal standard, very few college professors would be left alive when the dust settled.
So I hope that Muslims with some common sense eventually speak up and admonish the loudmouths like Choudary. Otherwise, the image of all Muslims is tarnished, and the idea that anyone who prays to Allah is just waiting for a chance to fly a plane into a building is spread even further. That’s not what the Muslims I’ve met in my life are like, not even remotely. It’s time for the common, average, non-extremist Muslims to speak up and tell the extremists to pipe down. Such violent responses to a few words only serve to foster a negative image, not reverse it.
Cell phones and marriage
A lot has changed since last we spoke regularly. I’m no longer a practicing insurance agent. In a startling revelation, I finally figured out that selling expensive health insurance policies in the poorest county in the state of Wisconsin might not actually be the fast-track to financial success.
Sure, seems obvious now, once you say it like that. Live and learn, I guess. I had a good experience along the way but my inability to make enough to even keep basic food on the table soon made it clear I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing.
So, I’ve moved back (or am in the process of doing so) to the Twin Cities. And instead of insurance, I’m selling cell phones, of all things. Well, it makes sense, in a way. After all, I used to do well selling computers and most smart phones and Blackberries are increasingly computer-like. So far it’s been a month of getting resettled, learning the product I’m selling and gearing things up for sales success. Since I’m now selling in the richly populated and relatively well-to-do Twin Cities instead of Check-to-Check, Wisconsin, I believe I’m actually going to do well this time. Things are lining up for a successful experience, and that’s a relief.
I’m also doing some phone work for some Minnesota insurance agents, though I’m not selling myself; I’ve considered maintaining my insurance license and transferring it over to Minnesota, just to keep my options open for the future. But for now, I’m enjoying the wireless phone biz.
I’m now less than six weeks out from my wedding, as well. It’s taken me nearly 40 years to get to this point in my life and despite all the stress and tension and everything else that goes along with getting married, I’m actually enjoying myself. Sure, money is a big question until the sales start closing; but the prospect of finally going through a wedding ceremony and some kind of honeymoon and opening my life up to another person is actually kind of fun in spite of all that comes with it. Not to sound cliche, but I am marrying the person who has become my best friend, and that’s quite something once it actually happens to you.
Still, life tosses plenty at you to make it a trial. In June alone, we learned my mother has hardening of the arteries and won’t be with us much longer; we’re praying she at least makes it to the wedding before God calls her home. And I also endured my first-ever kidney stone, an extremely painful and terrifying experience the first time you go through it without knowing what the heck is going on. It took four shots – count ‘em, four – of morphine to even bring my pain under control. That was not a good day, either.
But now it’s July 4, the most patriotic of all holidays, and with less than six weeks to go before I wave goodbye to single life, all I have to say is this: good riddence, single life! Time for a new chapter – even if it means, as it does for every married couple, a whole new set of problems.
Why Pizza Hut’s Twin Cities Hotline stinks
Last Sunday, a small group of friends I was with wanted to order a pizza. In the Twin Cities, for years and years, there’s been one simple number to call for hot pizza, delivered fast. The Pizza Hut Hotline, 651-488-8888. And typically, it works just fine. But not last Sunday… it turned into a nightmare.
It began innocently enough. We called in our order and were given a 35-minute estimated delivery time. Fair enough. So we all got involved in a discussion to take our mind off our rumbling bellies. Soon we were really getting hungry and yet there was no knock on the door, no buzz-up sounding, nothing.
Then we noticed the time. Our original call had been made at 5:45 p.m. It was now past 7 p.m., over an hour and 15 minutes since our original call, far longer than the 35 minutes cited. So I called 651-488-8888 back up to see what the holdup was.
Doing so, I encountered a voice messaging system menu that told me to press 1 if I was calling in a new order, press 2 if it was regarding a problem with a previous order. So, I pressed 2. And was promptly disconnected. Must be a mistake, I figured. I called back again, pressed 2. Same result. On the third try, I actually heard someone on the other end pick up a receiver and set it back down.
What?
I called back a fourth time and decided to press 1, just to get to a live person. Unfortunately, I was stuck with the most ill-trained telephone rep ever.
After explaining my MIA pizza, the rep asked, “What store did you order from, sir?”
“How should I know?” I replied. “I called this hotline and you guys connected me. I was never told. Just do it again.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but we need to know the store location to help you.”
“Not a minute ago,” I said, “you identified my order in your system. Don’t tell me you don’t know where to connect me.”
The rep then tried to put my call back into the voice message queue. In other words, option 2, where I’d already been hung up on three times.
“Oh no, don’t do that,” I said. “I’ve been hung up on enough by you guys. This isn’t that hard. Find my order and tell me why I’m not eating it right now. Find it and tell me where it is.”
“Sir, I don’t have that information. We’re doing the best we can for you.”
“So ‘your best’ basically means not helping, not solving the problem and not even knowing where my pizza is or what store to connect me to, when you’ve already pulled up my order in your system? Someone has to take some resposibility here and fix this problem. I’d like to speak to a manager, please.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the insolent idiot replied, “but that’s not possible at this time.”
And the bastard hung up on me. A fourth time.
Long story short? We ended up driving to Domino’s. It was past 8:30 p.m. before we finally ate. And 11 p.m. when we all left.
The kicker? Even by 11 p.m., our original Pizza Hut order hadn’t arrived. It never arrived. Ever.
So Pizza Hut can kiss Al Gore on the lips and whistle Toby Keith songs for all I care, but I still won’t be using 651-488-8888 Pizza Hut Delivery Hotline again. Ever.
And neither should anyone else.
Nintendo’s bogus points in their "big plan"
Over at the videogame site, Dignews, where I work as a videogame reviewer, they’ve posted a story about a Nintendo bigwig, revealing their master plan for the next generation of gaming. Well, the text of Nintendo’s “plan” was interesting, but there’s some overblown rhetoric in it. Of course, this isn’t uncommon. It happens whenever Sony or Microsoft speak, too. But here’s the thing. He used the analogy of Coke vs. Pepsi, and I guess he may be right that Pepsi’s number one overall. I’ll take his word on that, though I know on a product-to-product basis, Coke itself outsells Pepsi itself.
But his analogy was, Pepsi is number one because they diversified into snack foods, bottled water, sports drinks, etc. (Coke’s done this, too, by the way, and at the same time.)
Even if Pepsi is beating Coke overall, that hasn’t changed the fact that Coke is beating Pepsi when it comes to the core product. To eke out any type of victory, Pepsi had to count all their other products and acqusitions. And let’s be honest here, Coke and Pepsi have been battling it out for a LOT longer than just the 1980s to today, which his speech tends to portray. That’s misleading. Coke and Pepsi have both been around for nearly 100 years. Heck, Coke did “disruptive” things by that yardstick, way back in the 70s when Coke helped get Pizza Hut off the ground, making it a “Coke-exclusive” pizza chain. It’s been a long tug-o-war and hasn’t always been about just softdrinks for a LOT longer than just the 1980s to today.
Okay, but getting off the Coke/Pepsi analogy, which is problematic anyway…
I appreciate how well the Nintendo DS is selling, but I have to be honest about something here… I’m not sure it’s burning up the charts so much that it’s leaving the PSP in the dust. Does anyone have numbers on PSP to show that?
Here’s the deal: I’ve had my DS for about 15 months now, and I still only have 4-5 games for it that I like. My list is Nintendogs, Phoenix Wright, Trauma Center and I guess I like True Swing Golf, too. I thought I was gonna like the new Lunar Dragon Song, but I didn’t. So, hate to say it, but to be honest, personally and speaking only for myself… I use my DS more as a travel alarm clock than as a gaming device. A lot of this has to do with the type of games I enjoy. I love RPGs and there’s still not that many on DS. About the only DS game I don’t have that I know I might enjoy is Resident Evil Deadly Silence.
By point of comparison, the PSP has been out for a lot less time, not even a year yet, or maybe coming up to a year soon, though I’ve only owned one for about eight months, personally… and yet I have close to a dozen games on it I love playing, and even own a few PSP movies. (Family Guy stuff, since it has all the same extras as the DVD equivilents.) My list for PSP includes Hot Shots Golf Open Tee, Untold Legends, The Hustle Detroit Streets, Generation of Chaos, Legend of Heroes, Lord the the Rings Tactics, Lumines, Madden 06, Metal Gear Acid, MLB 06 The Show, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2006, and X-Men Legends II. Sure, some of these are also available on PS2. But I have the portable versions instead. So even though Nintendo’s DS is more expiermental, I’m getting a LOT more gameplay and use out of my PSP. Personally speaking. And PSP isn’t near as bulky, has a better, higher-res screen and though it has flaws and hazards, well… put it this way… it’s easier to fit into a slacks pocket and take it with you; with the bulky DS, that just isn’t possible.
I’ll admit the touch screen of the DS is a new idea. And when you have games that REALLY take advantage of it, it’s a totally unique experience. I mean, you couldn’t do Trauma Center on ANY other platform. It’s the best time I’ve had on DS, even moreso than Nintendogs. But sometimes even games I like aren’t flawless. Take True Swing Golf for example: the touch-screen input is awesome. But the game’s graphics are markedly low-res compared to Hot Shots Golf Open Tee for PSP. And True Swing Golf pretty much coasts on the novelty input device alone; the game’s golfers are fairly bland and the courses lack personality, compared to HSGOT. Even Tiger Woods PGA is better in those respects. So even though I love the input device for True Swing Golf, I have less fun playing with it, because the golfers and the courses are too bland.
And let’s be honest about this, too: It’s not like all DS software takes advantage of the touch screen, the voice recognition, the WiFi network. It would be awesome if they all did, but the big rip on DS was that, until 9 months in, when Nintendogs and Trauma Center came along, most DS software were straight ports from GBA and didn’t take advantage of ANYTHING on DS. That’s changing, which is good, but that’s how it was for most of the first year.
And let’s be honest about even this: Simply because it has a touch-screen, does that make it a “disruptive” product? It’s STILL a handheld gaming system, it’s STILL lower-res than PSP and it’s still pretty darn BULKY for a handheld gaming device.
So does the Pepsi analogy hold up? I don’t think so. The analogy is that Pepsi disrupted the cola war by selling a lot of stuff that wasn’t cola, like bottled water and snack food. All Nintendo has done, really, is reinvent the cola with NDS. A truly “disruptive” thing would be to sell a product that has nothing to do with gaming directly.
A better example of disruption is APPLE. Steve Jobs finally conceeded that the MAC was never going to overtake Windows PCs or laptops. So instead of just re-fighting that war over and over, he led the company into a whole new niche… the iPod, with iTunes. It’s not a PC or a Mac. It uses Mac technology but is PC compatible. And all it is, is the best way to buy songs legally and play them portably. Napster and others may have been there first, but Apple did it best. Apple’s back to being a winning comany because of iPod, not because of their desktop computers. That’s real disruption.
But redesigning the GameBoy with a new input device, or launching the Revolution with a remote-control-style controller? They’re fresh ideas, sure… but it’s still reinventing cola, not real disruption.
If Nintendo wanted to claim disruption, they’d be the ones selling Nintendo iPods, instead of DS… (Not iPods specifically, but some similar type of product that’s a real off-shoot of gaming, not just differently-designed gaming devices.)
So, for me, the speech attempted to be clever, but was way off-point.
Some quiz results… interesting!
Here are some quiz results I came up with on myself…
This one, I had no idea about. As a messianic Gentile, comparisons to strictly traditional Christian theologians are a hard match.
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You scored as Karl Barth. The daddy of 20th Century theology. You perceive liberal theology to be a disaster and so you insist that the revelation of Christ, not human experience, should be the starting point for all theology.
Which theologian are you? |
This one was absolutely no surprise to me. The quiz is, at least, accurate. I’ve been conservative since I first voted for Reagan in 1984.
You scored as Republican. <'Imunimaginative's Deviantart Page'>
What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In? |
While this doesn’t surprise me much (the quiz had no rating for messianic believers), at least it recognized I’m a mix since my second-closest match was Judaism. So it’s not a bad little tool. Fun site!
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You scored as Christianity. Your views are most similar to those of Christianity. Do more research on Christianity and possibly consider being baptized and accepting Jesus, if you aren’t already Christian. Christianity is the second of the Abrahamic faiths; it follows Judaism and is followed by Islam. It differs in its belief of Jesus, as not a prophet nor historical figure, but as God in human form. The Holy Trinity is the concept that God takes three forms: the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Ghost (sometimes called Holy Spirit). Jesus taught the idea of instead of seeking revenge, one should love his or her neighbors and enemies. Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross to save humankind and forgive people’s sins.
Which religion is the right one for you? (new version) |
The first sweet taste of success!
Ahh, the first sweet taste of success. A couple weeks ago, I finally broke through and sold my first insurance policy. It takes a lot of work and effort to reach a goal like that… and a lot of starving in between.
What most people don’t know about insurance agents is how hard they have to work just to sell one policy, especially in the early going when you’re just getting started. To sell that one policy, I had to make (approximately) 200 phone calls, only about 50 of which I contacted. Of those, I was able to set up meetings with about 15, but most of those folks cancelled or delayed on me. So I ended up with about four meetings that were kept, only one of which turned into my first sold policy.
It’s a rush of excitement, joy and relief when you get that first taste of helping someone out. It’s thrilling. But it’s also easy to forget just how hard you had to work to get there. It becomes tempting to begin thinking, “Okay, things are rolling now, soon I’ll have people calling me and it’ll get easier to help people.”
But that’s not solid thinking. The numbers don’t change much. You still need to do 100-200 calls to contact 50 people to set up 15 meetings, at least half of which will cancel or delay their meeting time with you, after you’ve already set a date and time. All that effort is necessary in order to get in front of 5-7 people and, hopefully, once you’re experienced enough, you can sell at least half of those.
But if you cut back on your calls, the numbers diminish and the rest of the numbers go down, too. That’s the hard part… to keep working at that high level, in order to acheive the level of success you need to make a good living.
If you slack off, call fewer people simply because you have a paycheck in your hand… well, you probably won’t, next week. A lesson I’m learning the hard way… but at least I’m learning it.
Finally, a fresh start
Well, it took much longer than expected, but a new chapter in my life has been opened and finally begun. In November 2005, I responded to an e-mail that my resume on CareerBuilder.com generated and although the job sounded too good to be true, my skepticism was eventually given reasonable answers and I decided to take a big leap and change careers. I am no longer a sports writer…
I am now self-employed. After training galore, passing a license exam and even more training, I am now on my way. I am a field service representative for the National Association of the Self-Employed and a licensed insurance agent in the state of Wisconsin for MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company. The career-switch is a radical one, but has turned out to be a much better fit for me.
While I loved being a sports writer at my local paper, the truth of the matter is it’s a poorly-paying job that has brought me to the brink of bankruptcy. Journalism may sound like a glamourous career and I suppose if you work for ESPN, it is. But for the work-a-day sports journalists at regular newspapers, we’re paid less … often a LOT less … than most public school teachers. Plus, generally speaking, teachers have much better benefits packages.
So, what’s the appeal of being a self-employed insurance agent? Surprisingly, there’s more to it than just better earning power, which was of course the initial draw.
Like a lot of people, I’ve been taken aback by recent skyrocketing rates in health insurance. And when I worked in a “corporate America” job, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. Your employer chooses the package and options, pays for part of it and you’re stuck taking it or being uninsured for the most part. And recent yearly spikes in health insurance rates over the past five years have hit me as hard as anyone else.
So have I joined the dark side? I really believe I haven’t. Like most people, I didn’t have a very good impression of insurance agents. But that impression was mostly formed from car insurance folks. The people I’ve met during my training and at the company I work for… I can’t think of a single one I dislike.
And I really can say that I can’t recall the last time I’ve met with a group of people more honest and principled than my fellow agents… outside of a church setting, at any rate.
Although journalism to insurance is a big jump, a lot about my old job has prepared me for this one. I think about all the stories I’ve done the last four or five years about kids or adults who are hit with devestating illness or circumstances, without being insured. You’re heart hurts for their circumstances, but as a journalist all I could do is tell their story and hope the community responded with some help.
As an NASE/Mega rep, I now can be more proactive, delivering affordable plans to folks who otherwise can’t afford it. It’s been a great ride so far, and I’m just getting started. I’m betting I’ll really enjoy it once I get my business rolling and start bringing in some income.
Anyway, Wonderful Pessimist is back! And this time, I’m gonna be more free to make regular posts. Get ready for some fun!
Ch-ch-ch-changes…
Someone once said “the only things I have to do is pay taxes and die.” Someone else said, “the only constant is change.” What I wish more than anything is that a bold conservative would come along and embody a mix of those two principals while president, by saying, “The only things I have to do is change taxes and die.” Now that would be a presidency to remember, especially if the dying part came long after he or she were out of office (because it’s cruel to wish anyone die before their time, unless they’re Hitler or someone equally heinous…)
Lately, I’ve been going through a lot of turmoil. Most of it has to do with oil prices and my chosen profession. As a journalist by trade, I don’t make much. Even chickens could go hungry on my chicken-feed salary. But this summer’s spiraling oil prices have really done a number on me. The increased cost of travel has prevented me from seeing my fiancee on a regular basis and has even led me to the brink of foreclosure on my home.
While ivory-tower big-city papers blithely opine that gas is still cheaper than most other liquids people buy, such as Starbuck’s Coffee, what they fail to realize is that, first, I don’t know anyone who consumes literally 20-30 gallons of coffee a week, but that’s not an unusual amount of gas per week, especially if you’re a journalist or in some other on-the-go profession. Second, you can cut back on coffee consumption when running low on cash; not so with gasoline.
For the paper I work at – a small weekly where I mostly cover high school sports and various general news assignments – driving a lot is a given and even with milage reimbursements, when gas tops $3.00 a gallon as it did for a while this past summer, it really kills you when you’re living barely check-to-check to begin with. I did the math for a column in my sports section, focusing on coaches from out-of-area quitting their positions to coach closer to home, to save on gas, and what I found was shocking. Compared to the 2001 price of gas, the new gas prices were almost exactly what I was falling short of in take-home pay each month. Sure, gas wasn’t the only factor, but it was a huge one. The recent drop to $2.25 or so is the only thing that’s saved me from complete financial devastation.
Finally, I’m taking action. I’m looking hard for a better, higher-paying job, even if it means selling insurance instead of the work I love. A person simply cannot make ends meet at $25K a year. Maybe at $40K.
Anyway, the bottom line is this: I’m sorry I’ve been absent for so long, but I’m trying to get my life back on track. I’ve had to cut out home internet, satellite TV and nearly every other luxury out of my life. It’s a boring life and I’m writing this post from a friend’s computer. But hopefully, by the first of the year, I’ll have a better-paying job, be living back in the Twin Cities area to be closer to my church and my fiancee, and will get back to really gearing up this blog.
I have plenty to say on the issues of the day. Soon, with a little luck, I’ll be back to saying them.
Dropping rocks on passing cars is no sport
At 1 a.m. on Sunday - in other words, Saturday night - I became a crime victim.
Driving back from a long day visiting my folks with my fiancée, I passed under the Stacy, Minn., exit on Interstate 35 when my car window exploded. Small, extremely sharp shards of glass imploded, littering the dashboard, the passenger seat and my lap. I wasn’t certain what had happened…
It was completely dark, with no cars close by. Somehow, I was blessed enough to keep the car going straight and steady without losing speed or swerving. But I was scared and unsure what to do next.
Had some wheel of a truck well ahead of me spit up a rock? Had the heavily humid, hot air outside and the AC-cooled air in the car caused the windshield to implode? Worst of all, had I been shot at, either knowingly or by way of a stray bullet?
None of those possibilities seemed plausible, but my windshield was nevertheless spiderwebbed, my lap full of tiny glass slivers. Thankfully, I wear glasses or the implosion might have had more severe immediate consequences.
On the off-chance I had been shot at, I decided to keep driving until I reached the North Branch exit, where I had been planning to stop for gas anyway. Once I arrived, I climbed out and inspected my car.
The deep indentation in the windshield indicated a couple things. First, some sort of object a bird, a rock, a baseball, whatever had collided with my windshield, dead square center. Second, if it had impacted any harder, it would have come through the windshield completely, resulting in a lot more than tiny splinters of glass.
I could have been sliced up by the glass. The object could have struck me. I could have lose control, crossed the median, entered the ditch or even collided with another vehicle. It could have been fatal. Thankfully, though, it wasn’t.
I called my fiancee while driving up to North Branch, Minn., to let her know what was going on. Once I arrived, I placed a phone call to 911.
To my surprise, I barely needed to start describing what had happened when the operator and later the state cop said that they knew exactly what had happened. It seems the I-35 overpass at Stacy, Minn., has had a chronic problem with an individual or group assumed to be kids tossing rocks at passing cars from atop the overpass, late at night.
That night, I was only one of five or six vehicles to get hit. They remain unapprehended and unidentified. They’ve been at it long enough for it to be familiar to state cops and 911 dispatchers.
Many folks try to excuse this behavior as the misadventures of children. “It’s just a kid’s prank,” they claim.
Legally, it’s either assault or vandalism. The standard sentence would be suspended in favor of probation and restitution.
I disagree. Call me biased as a victim, but it’s more serious than that. As far as I’m concerned, it’s attempted murder.
Once they catch them, that’s how it should be charged.
They just haven’t succeeded. Yet.
Why Air America and Al Franken will fail
Looking back at the past year or so in retrospect, it’s getting easier to speak about the election year with a bit of distance and detachment. While Decision 2004 ended up with a result I favor, it took a long time to get there and there was a lot of new silliness along the way…
Well, it’s probably flippant to call organizations like MoveOn.org and Air American silly, but certainly looking back at some of the actions and rhetoric they engaged in, one must concede that it’s hard to take them entirely seriously, either. I have a lot of thoughts I’ve been mulling over about this past election cycle, but the one I want to focus on today is Air America, the “new” liberal talk radio network… Specifically, Al Franken’s role in it.
WHY I ONCE LIKED AL
It would be easy to dismiss the opinion of anyone who dislikes a particular celebrity. After all, their mind is made up and their opinion of the person in question must therefore be biased, correct? And I suppose that is a reasonable assumption.
However, in this case, I have not come to the table with a predisposition to dislike Al Franken. In fact, for a large span in his career, I have found much of his professional work to be quite enjoyable.
During his stint on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, Franken was a great absurdist humorist, poking fun at any number of cultural conventions. Whether he was on Weekend Update wearing a satellite uplink helmet or making special appearances with one-time comedy partner Tom Davis, Franken was wacky in an enjoyable, slapstick kind of way.
Yet for me, perhaps his greatest contribution to the culture is his self-help character, Stuart Smalley. Having grown up myself in a home with an alcoholic parent, much of the self-help/self-love/affirmation mind-set he was skewering was immediately identifiable, if not through direct family parallels than through contact with others whose problems ran along the same lines.
Although enjoyable as a skit character, the high-water mark for the Stuart Smalley character was a small, modest film that spun the character off into his own movie, “Stuart Saves His Family.” While the flick barely made a blip at the box office, it quickly became a personal favorite because the film moved beyond the surface caricature of Stuart and showed us his whole, dysfunctional family life. No longer as slapstick a character, the movie was successful in touching deep emotional chords that anyone who has been part of a dependency household can identify with, even if the specifics of their lives vary from those in the movie.
The film succeeded (creatively, if not commercially) because Franken’s script treated each character as valid and human – even the largely unsympathetic alcoholic father. And he had what appeared to be an uncanny understanding of the hopelessness that can often pervade life inside a family with a dependency dysfunction.
Simply for making the movie “Stuart Saves His Family,” I can never really dislike Al Franken. But I can be disappointed in the quality of his current work.
And I am.
WHY I NO LONGER CARE FOR AL FRANKEN’S WORK
When Franken was focused on comedy, or even on movie making, much of his work was sharp, humorous and witty. When I initially heard he was thinking of becoming the liberal response to Rush Limbaugh, my first thought was, “Well, here’s a funny guy, so maybe the Libs finally have the right idea here.”
That hasn’t proven to be the case.
In my view, Franken’s political punditry career got off to a bad start with his first overtly political tome, “Rush Limbaugh Is a Big, Fat Idiot.”
I was a bit taken aback. Not because Franken chose to attack Rush – for liberals, who is a riper target for lampooning than Mr. Limbaugh, after all? – but because of the level of the humor.
Big? Fat? Idiot? That’s the best a talented humorist like Franken can come up with is to call the nation’s top conservative radio host fat and dumb? Name-calling? That’s the best Franken could do?
Surely it has to be just a matter of the title of the book only, I thought. A marketing ploy. Choose an outrageous, even cheap, title to get attention, but surely a more sophisticated brand of parody would show up in the interior pages, right?
Nope. For all his bluster, Franken couldn’t scrape together anything greater than that: name-calling. Considering the heart Franken had displayed behind the movie “Stuart Saves His Family,” such base vitriol was disappointing, at the very least.
And Limbaugh hasn’t been his only target. The current president gets treated to no deeper commentary that does Rush: Franken spends a lot of time his calling GWB stupid. And he doesn’t even spend much time searching for a variety of synonyms to add some variety to the endless name-calling.
It’s disappointing, really. While I am not a liberal and never will be, I kinda liked the idea of Franken as a liberal response to Rush. If he had proven to be as humorous as Limbaugh, from the other side of the aisle, it could have made flipping back and forth between the two shows loads of fun. A nice rivalry. But Franken just isn’t cutting it.
Al, speaking as someone who really has appreciated your work if not your politics, here’s a sincere plea: Make your show funnier. And here’s the first hint: Name-calling wears thin. You’re capable of better humor than just calling W., Rush and anyone else who doesn’t agree with you stupid, fat and ugly. If you think Rush is only a name-caller, you haven’t really analyzed his show and its appeal deeply enough.
Can there be a liberal version of Rush Limbaugh? Sure. And Franken had potential.
But fat jokes and calling people stupid can only get you so far. And it really does go against the grain, Al, of much of your best work.
