Pour us a road, we’ll both drink and drive

Sometimes, we’re so counterproductive in our society, it’s a wonder we get anything accomplished. Hell, look at government as a good example! Seriously though, if we used just a slice of common sense, we might actually get to the other side of the road and go, “Huh, if I had known it was that easy, I would’ve done that a long time ago!”

The reason I’m mentioning this is that last night, I took a friends brother who is in town for the week to my favorite hockey bar to watch Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals while my friend was busy with a previous commitment. After I arrived home from work, changed and was heading out the door, my brother walked in and asked where I was headed, so I mentioned it to him and asked if he wanted to join us. Now I know my brother is only 19 years old, but he has been in this bar before, not with me, but with some other people that know the owners, so I figured we’d be ok.

We get to the bar, find some seats and get ready to sit down, but the bartender spotted us as we were walking in and asked to see everyone’s ID. First off, um, hello? I have a beard and some grayish hair; I think I can pass for 21! Second, I mentioned that my brother wasn’t 21, but we brought him so he could be our designated driver, which I thought would be a logical excuse. It wasn’t likely that he’d be drinking; however, the law in Texas says that he can’t be in there, but then, it also says this:

In Houston, Texas, beer many not be purchased after midnight on Sunday, but can be purchased anytime on Monday...which happens to begin right after midnight on Sunday! So it's illegal to buy it when it’s legal to buy it?

I digress.

This left us with two options, pick up some beer, go back to the house and watch the game, or I drive my brother home and come back. He said it was ok if I took him home and I mentioned option 1, but he said he was cool with going home, so I drove him back there and headed back to the bar to hang out with my friends’ brother.

This brings about non-logical point number two: I know have to waste gas to drive my brother home. This is really not the time to be wasting energy resources! If we let him stay at the bar, I can drink a little more and have a safe, reliable driver waiting to take me home AND only use one trip’s worth of gas. This is opposed to the two trip’s worth of gas I had to use to take him home and then try not to drink too much so I could be a responsible driver for myself. Does that make sense to anyone? Sober driver and less gas used, or slightly intoxicated driver and more gas used, which sounds better?

On a side note, my brother is not a big hockey fan because he grew up in the south, whereas I grew up in the north. He has watched a number of games at home with me during the playoffs, but he’s just not a big fan in general. My friends’ brother on the other hand…anyway.

Needless to say, tomorrow night, we’re staying in to watch the game.

All in all, we're just bricks in the wall

Updated 5/29: On Sunday 5/27, Alexandria from Houstonist gave me some props in her "local blog roundup" post. Thanks! Also, in the comments section, I completed a thought that wasn't explained very well in the original post, so I suggest reading there as well.

Maybe it's because I'm not originally from Texas and I've never heard of closing underperforming schools before, but how does that help?

It sounds to me, that moving students to other schools would only shuffle underperforming students to schools that are currently performing at an acceptable rate, thus dragging down those schools scores.

Here's an idea, let's try reorganizing the staff. Move some (certainly not all) of the teachers that are able to excel in these tough situations out of the acceptable schools and into these schools. Let's hire more staff. Oh wait, that's right, our schools are cash-strapped because of extraneous, ridiculous overspending in other areas.

I never understood how or why education funding declines or remains stagnant. Seriously, the people in our schools will be taking care of you and I in 30-40 years; don't we want them to be the best possible people they can be? If we need to raise taxes for better education funding, then so be it, it's in everyone's interest. Generating more income would provide more staff, or at the very least, possibly a more qualified staff like they have at those fancy schmancy private schools.

Education is one of those things on which we should not be skimping. We’re already lagging in compared to other countries when it comes to how many engineers or scientists we’re churning out of our colleges.

In our society of billionaires, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Paul Allen, Michael Dell, and more familiarly Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Forbes & the Walton Family of Wal-Mart fame, why not throw a couple BILLION (each) at our education system. Meanwhile, here in Houston, Ken Lay’s widow is worried about unfreezing her dead husbands’ assets. Do you think if she does receive any of that money she will throw it back into these schools? I think not.

I don’t want to go completely off topic, but many of the people who are in these struggling schools may ultimately wind up fighting and dying in a war that throwing money towards doesn’t seem to be as big a conundrum for the government.

Don't wanna talk about politics, refuse to talk about politics

I've been keeping up with and participating in an interesting debate going on here. It's a complex issue that deserves attention and I am encouraging people to get involved to help resolve a large problem in this country and throughout the world.

Rebel, rebel and yell cause our people still dwell in hell.

Oooooooo, I am feisty today!

I received what I thought was spam in my email this morning. It was from an American/Israeli group in regards to the war in Iraq, the situation in Israel, the lies being told by American mainstream media...blah, blah, blah. After reading about 5 sentences, I was pretty mad, so I just started to write a reply back, my thoughts flowing like a fire hydrant and I laid into whoever wrote the email real good. However, I did not assault the person personally, I only attacked their "group" for continuing with the lies that they so vehemently oppose from our own media. I'm not going to bore you with details of either email. What I will tell you is that it was not spam! I know this because I got a response from a specific person who attacked me, my upbringing, my marital status (why, I do not know) and my mother!

Need I say more as to why I am feisty today? Well, I'm going to anyway.

Next.

Women. I love women, but for the love of...please wear a bra when you are going to wear a tank top to the grocery store! a) It's usually chilly in the store and men will notice those things; and b) With every step you take, I swear one of your melons are going to fly out the side! I wouldn't have mentioned this if it had just been one weirdo women, but it was more like 5 women - and 3 of them were fairly attractive, so it was difficult not to stare!

Next.

Before I moved last week, I purchased DirecTV. I scheduled the installation appointment for Friday. I didn’t realize that my apartment did not face the southern sky as much as it needed to, so I had to cancel it and go back to cable. When I called to cancel, the customer service lady asked me why I was cancelling and I told her the straightforward reason. Her next question, I kid you not, "Will you want to reschedule your appointment?" I wanted to say, "Well, if my apartment suddenly rotates enough to start facing the southern sky, I'll reschedule," but I politely said, "No, thank you." She then asked, "Why?" I swear I am not making this up! I politely reiterated my statement from earlier and she must have understood my frustration because she said, "Ok then, have a nice weekend!"

I pledge allegiance to a nation without borders, without pride, without politicians like ourselves

I spend a small amount of time each day reading various blogs regarding problems with our local, state, national and international politics. I read people bitching, sharing their various annoyances and I read the reported facts regarding their issues so I am informed and can understand why they’re angry. The problem that has gotten under my skin recently however, is that while it is our American right to bitch, it’s also our American right to do something proactive to change these things. We all seem to have something to say and we are more than willing to use the fairly anonymous medium of the internet to say it, but I don’t see or read about anybody actually doing something about these issues. It’s all well and good that we can sign petition after petition at moveon.org and other places to share our displeasure, but that doesn’t entirely solve the problem. Here are my 2 cents: I think the blogging community should start running for public office. Apparently, bloggers all know what the problems are, it’s obvious to us, Joe Public, but it’s not as obvious to our government officials. Most bloggers who read and write about political ineptitude are pretty smart people and they reach the audience that many politicians, in my opinion, feel they are above. Why not turn our passion for cleaning up bureaucracy into a political campaign to stop the lying, cheating and ignorance that beholds many of our public officials. I think we could do it if we all put our heads together! Think of the things we could accomplish! We would focus on the needs of real people, who have real problems, instead of giving another tax cut to the wealthiest 1% of us. We could also tell auto manufacturers to raise the CAFE standards, which, in turn, would drop the price of oil and save us all a little money in the end. Hell, as long as we’re saving some money, then we could institute logical and fair campaign finance reform, which of course we would all abide by, and save more money! Politicians wouldn’t need to shuffle money from one place to the next to pay for our campaigns and end up in prison because we were so power hungry we were willing to do anything to keep that power. Bloggers unite, rise up and be counted – literally – our voices are already heard on a daily basis. We have an audience, what we do with it is up to us.

It’s the safety dance

This is our government at work. Maybe we need to send them a wake up call by voting their lazy asses out of office!

I saw a great bumper sticker this morning:

W
Our Scarlet Letter

That’s all I have to say about that.

(Click the title of this post for the news story.)

We live in a political world...We’re living in times where men commit crimes

Apparently, the Republican Party, the party that wants to display the Ten Commandments in front of courthouses and have any phrase with the word “God” in it put into our daily vocabulary, whether it’s through the Pledge of Allegiance, or on a quarter, is forgetting how to represent certain commandments and whatever God they seem to acknowledge. I’m pretty sure this story takes care of commandment #’s 5, 8 & 9. In case you you’re a little rusty on what those commandments say, here’s a refresher course:

5. You shall not dishonor your parents.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not commit perjury.

I suppose if you want to get technical, you could include #6 in there as well (You shall not murder). Because he was taking bribes from defense contractors, he was indirectly murdering people. Or maybe I’m just stretching this a little far? Nonetheless, way to go GOP! It’s a good thing the Democrats have absolutely nobody to run against you in 2008.

That's just the way it is, some things will never change

Here we are again, on the all-important Election Day. Does it really matter anymore who we vote into office? Months and months are spent campaigning, spending your money that you’ve donated to get them elected, but does anything really change just because we elect new officials? Whom do they really represent? I have concerns and questions. Is anyone listening to me? I have thoughts and ideas on important issues. Does anyone care? Politicians eagerly take and spend your money, but when was the last time they really did something for you? Somebody out there, please, talk to me!

A government for hire

My girlfriend forwarded an email to me, which was sent out by the Democratic Party candidate running against Tom DeLay, Nick Lampson. I think you'll get the idea of what that email said by reading the response I sent her:

“Ok, here's the problem I have with this email - it's all well and good that Tom DeLay is an idiot, but you and I know that already, as do a lot of other voters, especially the Democrats. Tell me what you are going to do! Nowhere in this email does he talk about what he is going to do about any of the problems we face as a region, state and country. I want answers, not blame. I'd rather run the actual donkey from the democrats logo, than someone who doesn't say anything important.

Instead of sending out this email, I would 1000x prefer an email that says something like, ‘While Tom DeLay is busy fighting his legal battles, what is he doing for you in Congress? The only battles I'll be fighting are to help save (blank), grow more jobs in our region and by working hard, I'll do (blank). Improving our education system in this country is my top priority and I'm going to present a plan that does (blank). This education plan is important because with a good education, the future workforce of Texas and America will be able to work the jobs I helped to create, which will keep this region, state and country's economy flowing and growing for years to come.’

Give me something to get excited about, not something to get more pissed off at (Tom DeLay). When are politicians going to get their heads out of their asses?”

Yes, I'm a little feisty today!

Losing my religion

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that bothered me, but I couldn't explain how it bothered me. It read:

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich"

I just couldn't help thinking that, yes, it may do that, but I don't think it's keeping the rich from murdering the poor, or the oppressed.

Let's take the issue of the Iraq war. President Bush has led our fairly wealthy country into a poor and formerly oppressed country and we are killing their people, our brave soldiers and other country's military personnel so that our fairly wealthy country can sleep better at night - to be blunt about it.

So maybe what bothers me the most is that our President, who is deeply, ridiculously religious, feels it's ok to kill the poor, the oppressed or even the innocent, so long as it makes us feel ok. But does he not see that we aren't ok with it? There are millions of people who believe that what we are doing in Iraq is wrong and our children are the cost of his rationalization.

I have so many thoughts running through me about this that I cannot put into words right now, so I think I'll come back to this topic over the next few days and weeks.

Take me down under the wishing tree and lay your healing hands on me.

(Click the title for a link on Katrina facts)

I am being criticized for being insensitive about the situation in New Orleans. I’m sorry; I have very little sympathy for people who were told many times that this was a possibility and then told on Sunday morning to leave and didn’t. Crying wolf for the past however many years is not a valid excuse. If someone tells you it is dangerous to stay, you pack up quickly and quietly and leave. If nothing happens, well, you’ve wasted some time and money, sure, but if this happens, you’ve saved your family’s lives as well as your own. I realize many of them do not have the means to leave and that their government, your government, my government, should have had a better plan in place to take care of this potential situation and didn’t. However, your common sense should tell you that in this situation, a major catastrophe could occur and that you need to use almost any means necessary to get your ass moving. I say “almost any means”, because I would hope that people wouldn’t resort to carjacking other people who are also trying to leave. It’s ironic how before the storm, some people are selfish and want to get out of dodge ASAP with only their families, but after the storm, in the wake of tragedy, ‘we are all here to help each other.’

People in other parts of the country should be outraged at the (lack of) government response to this disaster. They should be wondering what would happen if something occurred in their region. What would happen if an F5 tornado tore through a major city such as Washington, DC? That was a very real possibility after Hurricane Ivan ran up the Atlantic coast last fall. Tornadoes touched down within 50 miles of that city. What is going to happen when the “big one” rips apart California? They will have no warning at all. At least with this hurricane, we had time to plan and take action, which we did, but we had neither a solid plan nor did we take appropriate action for the possibility of what could, and did, occur. Now think about a Cat 5 hurricane barreling through Miami, pushing a 30-foot storm surge up onto South Beach and over all those ridiculous fancy-schmancy homes that bizzilionaires build.

Speaking of wealthy people, where are they right now? Why hasn’t Bill Gates donated $1 Billion of his own dollars for aid? Is it because he thinks he’ll never get it back because the people that are in need will never be able to purchase his Microsoft products? It all makes sense then that Wal-Mart has donated $17 million in aid. They’ll make that ten-fold as people get their lives back together. Where is Steve Forbes? Where is Donald Trump? He should be chomping at the bit to send one or more of his construction companies to the Gulf Coast to help clean up and rebuild! You would think he’d be salivating all over himself to be able to tell people he helped clean up and rebuild lives! The musicians well, of course they’ll be a concert/telethon! There is no way this country could let this go by without doing one. After all, we held one for the Tsunami victims, how could we not do one for our own country? I watched Wynton Marsalis last night say that he wished he had other skills to help those in need, but he is a musician and he’ll play music to help people to feel better. What? Your two hands can’t help any other way than by holding a musical instrument? How does he expect them to see this concert with the electricity being out? I also thoroughly enjoyed reading some of the people’s statements on craigslist to help those in need.

In particular, I like this one: willing to phone friends & family. It reads like this:

If you need to get a message out to relatives or friends, I will be happy to assist. I live in Delaware, but location doesn't matter. Please send mail with YOUR name, YOUR message, THEIR name, THEIR number.

Hope I can help. God bless you,

Marion

Ok, I have to give it to this woman for wanting to help, but HELLO, if they can get in touch with you, most likely they can get in touch with other family members!

Wait, because there are more like this!

Try this one from an anonymous person who posted in New Hampshire:

Please email me the name, relationship, and number of all family members outside of the disaster zone. I will contact them on your behalf. Please also provide some type of information if possible, that I can give to your family so they know that the call is not a prank. I will call each person, read your email to them, and email you back with whom I was able to contact.

Our Prayers Our (ed note: nice use of the wrong word – are) With You All........

An American who wants to help.......

This person has really lost their marbles. You email them; they’ll call your family or friends and then email you back to let you know they have been in contact. Assuming the family/friends don’t have email, this is a good idea; otherwise, it goes along with the first woman.

Then, there is this one from Kansas City, Mo:

If you would like us to care for your child while you get back on your feet we can. We will enroll them in school (if old enough). We will make sure that they are fed and well clothed. We are a loving couple. All of our children are grown and gone. We can take one child from age 2-12 until you are back on your feet. We will return a happy, clean, and educated child to you.

I like the idea behind this one, but who is going to give their child to complete strangers to raise for a few months?

What is wrong with people in this country? People have gone absolutely stupid! The poor can’t get out in time. The rich don’t help with appropriate action. The politicians, while some are genuine in their words, are always thinking about how this will play out in the press. The middle class wants to donate money, some will, but most can’t, so they donate their time instead, like me, except I’m doing something rational like volunteering at the food bank and donating my less-used clothes.

Our government has critically failed us in our most desperate time of need. Sure, it was there after 9/11, depending to whom you talk. I think some of the victims families might disagree. During 9/11, at least the area of need was concentrated. However, with this hurricane, it is extremely widespread and long lasting, as is evident in New Orleans. Money won’t fix everything along the Gulf Coast. These are people’s homes, dreams, memories, families and lives. Money can’t bring all that back. In addition, while I’m on the money issue, this position has been brought up a number of times in the press. A circumstance arose where people who live paycheck to paycheck, or government check to government check, could not buy gas for the cars and that is why they did not leave because they wouldn’t have received their money until yesterday. Had the hurricane occurred a few days later, it is possible more people would’ve left. For me, there are two issues here; 1) again, our government agencies have failed us because in dire circumstances, such as this one, gasoline should be given away so people can evacuate and the bill should be footed by the government. 2) I’m wondering where all the money that normally would be going to these people this week is headed? Obviously, no mail will be going to their homes since a) the mail can’t get through the roads and b) they probably don’t have mailboxes anymore! All the local, state and federal paychecks, welfare, social security and any other government checks that should have been sent out this week have question marks attached to them; were they sent? If so, where did they go? How does someone who has lost everything go about receiving his or her check? Our government has failed the people of New Orleans terribly. Lack of planning for an event of this nature is inexcusable and even with as many people that have already lost everything, our “leaders” should be relieved of their duties so real leaders can step forward and begin the process of planning for the next catastrophe. We create computer models for what might happen if this event occurs, but can’t create a computer model on how to evacuate over a million people in about 30 hours. In addition, you have to remember we aren’t out of hurricane season yet. What happens if another storm comes through that area, like the four that rolled through Florida last year? I suppose it could be just a tropical storm or Cat 1 hurricane and this area might be completely submerged. How can our government let people ride out a devastating storm of this nature, with the possibility of events becoming what they are today? On Saturday night, when they realized this might be “the one”, our government should have an emergency task force and a plan in place to get people out of the city, beginning immediately. Paul Revere rode all night by horse to alert people the British were coming, surely, we should’ve declared martial law and could’ve sent police and firefighters into neighborhoods with sirens blaring to wake people and start evacuating them. How do you evacuate a few hundred thousand people who have no transportation? Follow the police and firefighters into the neighborhoods with school buses, city buses, taxis, airport shuttles, hotel shuttles, limousines, cars from used car lots (in this case, they are now unusable, so why not use them for evacuating people?) and numerous other vehicles. Send them into the city, force the people to leave. They won’t want to go at first, but they need to be forced and will thank their lucky stars afterwards when they are alive, dry, fed and out of the heat/humidity. They only need to be sent less than one hundred miles to the west of N.O. to be safe. If we do the math with a fair amount of guesstimating, a school bus could hold approximately 100 people and I would imagine there are a couple thousand of those in the N.O. area. If they drive 4 hours round trip for each vehicle, loading and unloading time included, an hour to reload and head back out of the city, they could’ve made 4 trips from late Saturday night through early Sunday evening and we probably could’ve forced the evacuation of at least a half million people. Hell, 100 buses, holding 100 people is 10,000 people evacuated. 1,000 buses are 100,000 people. 1,000 buses by four trips each, then add in all the city buses, other vehicles and so on. Do the math. See the mistakes.

Now getting the people who lack transportation out of the city should have been a priority of course, but the number one priority people to evacuate should be all hospital patients! People are dying in hospitals because the hospital didn’t have the means to keep them alive. They are a side effect of the damage caused by the hurricane. Subsequently, after they die, they are just left to sit in the halls, heat & humidity to rot, because the morgue, in the basement, is flooded. This is just a disgrace and disrespectful of life itself. These people could’ve been moved all day on Sunday, all the hospitals could’ve been cleared out and lives saved. Not to mention, there would be doctors and nurses available to tend to anyone that may not have made it out of the path of this destruction for some reason. They would’ve been well rested and ready to take on the battles of saving lives with better resources than manually ventilating people because they don’t have a generator. It’s just disgusting to think about what they must be going through.

If people had been evacuated properly, the looting and danger that currently awaits people would have been eliminated. The guns might still be in the Wal-Mart cases (why Wal-Mart needs to sell guns is beyond me, but that’s for a different rant) along with the ammunition. Police wouldn’t be turning in their badges. Rescue operations wouldn’t have to be suspended because of safety and security reasons. One well-executed plan could’ve prevented all of these problems if our “leaders” had the foresight for the worst-case scenario they claim they had feared.

On numerous occasions, I’ve mentioned the government, but I have been careful not to criticize one group or the other because they are both to blame for the numerous problems that have occurred this week. One group may claim that if the poverty level weren’t so high in N.O. much of this wouldn’t have happened. The other group will claim that they wanted to do something, but the other side kept preventing them from action. All of it is just bullshit. We’re talking about human lives, not theoretical situations. What-if’s and what might-be’s can’t be debated on the floor of the House or Senate. Practicality and common sense need to rule when you’re talking about how to keep your people safe. The ACLU can kiss my ass on this issue too. I’m all for civil liberties and freedom of choice, but when it comes to my life, my family’s lives and my friends lives, I want my government to tell me what to do, where to go and how to be as safe as I possible can. I’m pretty sure that’s why I pay my taxes. I hope that people don’t trust their government after this. They should question what their representatives are doing for them. It can’t be all about which lobby spends the most money to get their officials elected. It has to be about what they are doing to protect us as well. Maybe this will get people out to vote and interested in their local elections. They’ll see who is working for them and elect the people they feel will do what is right for their local communities, their region and ultimately their state and nation. Why is it that everyone knows the name of the President, but hardly anyone, including myself, can name their city councilperson, which is where the majority of governing is done? In this case, it could’ve saved lives. Government has to be about practicality and common sense. It can’t be based on anyone’s personal values.

I have to say that while I feel a large sense of disgrace for how our government has acted in the face of adversity, I do feel genuine sadness for all of the deceased and now homeless people, whose dreams and lives have been shattered in less than 24 hours. Hundreds of thousands of people will need years to rebuild only portions of their lives if only to sustain themselves for the near future, retirement not withstanding. Then I think about the elderly people who lived on a tight budget and have lost everything. I can only hope they have positive relationships with younger family members who can take care of them during this transition time or for the rest of their lives. I cannot begin to imagine how the lower class citizens without viable job-skills will survive. I hope that construction companies will be willing to have the patience to train these people and they can contribute to helping rebuild the region they once called home. If the construction companies come, it will mean that they will have to rebuild the grocery stores and restaurants so there are places to feed these people. Those businesses will also need employees and I hope they find patient people to train and manage them. This is how their economy will need to be built. Just like the region, it will have to start from the ground up.