Compassionate Conservatism

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 09:12 AM PST

Doug Holtz-Eakin, the former top health-care-reform advisor to John McCain during the presidential election is in an ironic position. After the election his job vanished, of course, and now his COBRA health coverage — for which he pays around $1000 a month — is about to expire. And an accident in 1990 left him with a damaged kidney, which means he has one of those pesky “preexisting conditions”. He jokes “My mother is deeply concerned that I don’t have a job.”

Of course, he doesn’t have to worry too much. Holtz-Eakin himself says “Let’s not whine too much about me. I’m a wealthy, affluent American in the big picture.” But an increasing number of Americans are finding themselves in similar situations, and they aren’t so well off. Is his experience giving him any empathy for those less fortunate?

Unfortunately, no. Holtz-Eakin says his conviction on the hot-button issue of health care is unchanged.

Sigh.

 

Enjoy!

 

Monday is the saddest day of the week, no doubt.  It is positively the worst day to say goodbye to a trusted and true friend.  Yet, what is one to do?  Sometimes a companion cannot be saved.  Both eyes are missing, the fur worn off, the stuffing gone. 

 

Goodbye Bear!

 

He was my best friend at one time of my life.  I loved him as I imagine some feel they love their soul mate, although I wasn’t silly enough to think he had a soul.  I suppose now that I am grown up I must put away childish things and be a proper young lady and do proper young lady things such as attend tea dances escorted by my elderly aunts.  Alas, I yearn for a free afternoon to do as I please, but that seems highly unlikely.

 

I wonder, now I am being silly, but I wonder if bears, at least stuffed ones, have feelings?  I mean, at one point do you believe he felt the same for me as I felt for him?  Do you think he yearned for my embrace, not like one receives from some boy they are to marry, but an embrace based on comfort.  Do you think he enjoyed it when I slept with my cheek against his chin?

 

My mother says I wonder about such odd things, but sometime I do wonder if others may think it is weird.  Extraordinary things can happen you know.  Perhaps I should keep my friend and not send him to certain death on a trash heap.  Perhaps if I just hide him under my bed no one will know that there is still a small part of me who identifies with the child she once was.

 

I do hope you can keep a secret for I could not stand it if I were to bear it alone. 

 

 

Westerfield © 2008  

This appeared first on Family and Consumer Law: The Blog.

 

Day 24 of 30 Days of Debt Collection, and it's time for another round of what's my case worth? (FDCPA edition.) The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA,) remember, lets debtors who are the victims of violations of that law.

Victims like the three people in New Mexico who were awarded $87,000 in damages for abuses by a debt collector. The debt collector told one debtor that her mom might have to go to jail, called another derogatory names and used profanity, threatened to have one arrested, claimed a lawsuit would be filed, and, last but not least, agreed with the debtors to settle an account for a lesser amount, only to breach that agreement and try to get more money. The debtors were also awarded almost $6,000 in attorney's fees.

It looks like the defendants didn't bother to even appear in court -- so it's not clear if the debtors would have gotten more or less if the collectors had fought on it.

Remember that all cases are different and yours might be worth more... or less... or nothing at all.

Click here to go to Family and Consumer Law: The Blog and read the other days of Debt Collection, as well as the other great discussions of family and consumer law topics discussed there.

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This appeared first on Thinking The Lions; you may have to go to that site to watch the videos referenced.

 

 

If you read this, leave a comment! Here's why.


Five days from now, America will be celebrating what has become the second-most popular holiday in our pantheon: Black Friday, the day American celebrate Capitalism by complaining about the effects of Capitalism.

Black Friday, which has nearly surpassed Thanksgiving already, and soon will, is perhaps the most American of holidays. It is more American than Independence Day; lots of independent countries celebrate their independence, even Burma, which doesn't, technically, exist anymore. (Burmese Independence Day is January 4, in case you were wondering.) It's more American than Memorial Day or Christmas or Easter -- those holidays, too, are celebrated in other countries, to greater or lesser degrees. (And sometimes on the wrong day, as they do in Russia.)

But only Americans celebrate Black Friday, that day that we get out there and shop shop shop, shopping to begin our holiday celebration, shopping to save our country's economy in past years, but mostly just shopping. Stores open earlier than ever, people get more excited than ever, there are crowds and yelling and parking lot kerfuffles and Santa Claus. It's like Beatlemania, only more American.

There are only two ways that Black Friday could be more American:

1. There could be a television special about it, preferably starring a comic strip character. Like Nancy. She's never had a TV special, has she?,

and

2. Have sports involved.

Adding sports to holidays is a growing trend in America, too. In the same way that we're slowly turning every holiday into a shopping opportunity (or, shoportunity)(TM Thinking The Lions 2009), we're slowly adding sports to the mix. It began with the longstanding tradition of having two crummy football games aired on Thanksgiving -- Detroit and Dallas annually square off in football games that are cared about, really, only by fans in Detroit and Dallas, and fans in Detroit probably don't care so much anymore, now that their city is in worse shape than New Orleans was after Hurricane Katrina -- so much worse that Detroit is used as the location for Katrina-themed movies.

But then the NFL Network added a third game on Thanksgiving night (this year it's the Giants at My Kyle Orton's Denver Broncos. That's the game, not, as this site says, the Colts-Falcons.). And there's a college game that day, USC at Arizona. Even golf is getting into the action, with the "Omega Mission Hills World Cup" of Golf tournament teeing up at 12:30 a.m. ET (yes, that time is right)

Christmas continues the tradition: The NFL will play a special Friday game on December 25; there may be some religious significance to the choice of teams set to square off that day, the Chargers and the Titans, but I'll leave that to wiser minds. College football plays tons of games on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. The NBA plays five games on Christmas Day. (NASCAR, the WNBA, and the LPGA don't schedule anything on holidays, because (a) their seasons have already ended, and (b) they are not, technically, sports.)

But while sporting events and the holidays are a recent trend, sporting gifts and the holidays are anything but; sporting gifts at the holidays go back as far as humanity goes back. I'm pretty sure that Cro Magnon man, around the time he was forcing Neanderthals to hole up in caves in Spain before finally wiping them off the planet, was also giving sporting-themed Christmas gifts, little Christmas ornaments made out of antelope bone and shaped like their favorite sporting teams (The Pangaea Dinosaur Killers vs. The Rodinian Lungfish was a great rivalry back then.)

And as long as there have been gifts, and sports, and people who like sports, and people who give gifts, there have been really crummy sport-related gifts. Gifts so terrible that they should not have been invented, let alone given. Gifts so lame that they reflect badly on the giver, the creator, and humanity in general.

That's why, each year, I make it my mission around the holiday season to do what I do best, which is: tell other people what to do, or not to do, in this case. I do that by giving you my

(You can tell it's a serious endeavor by the number of exclamation points. Like Kate Gosselin, I know that some things are best! expressed! with exclamation points!!)

The Annual Nonsportsmanlike Conduct! Nongift! Nonguide! (or ANCNN, if you like acronyms, and who doesn't like a good acronym?) (Aside from the Acronym Sense Society, or A.S.S., "an organization created to oppose the widespread overuse of acronyms." They don't like a good acronym, or any acronyms.) The ANCNN exists to help you, the sensitive and caring gift buyer with a sports-loving person or persons in your life, decide what not to get.

I don't just focus on the negatives, though.

I also offer positive suggestions, which are these: Get them a hat, or shirt, or jersey of their favorite team or player. That's all. A hat, a jersey, a shirt, a sweatshirt of the team or player they love. They'll like it, it's not expensive, it can be used in almost any context, and it's practical.

That's the positive advice. Here's the negative advice, in the form of the following gifts, which are the top worst sport-related gifts this year. Remember, there are lots -- lots -- of terrible sports related gifts out there. These are just...

... what's the opposite of creme de la creme? Whatever it is, these are that. They are the noncreme de la noncreme of sports-related gifts. So do not give these to the sports lover in your life.

"Special Subjects Instructional Coaching Videos."

The Product: The "Coaching Special Subjects" DVDs from Howtosports.com.

Their Pitch: Imagine having your son or daughter taught the proper Special Subjects skills, mechanics, techniques and related drills by world-class coaches. All Sports Coaching Clinics' special, hands-on, how-to, video series offers instructional videos on every position and valuable hands-on instruction for players of all levels.

The Problem: It's natural to want to help your son or daughter get better at sports, but the "special subjects" videos in the Coaching series from How To Sports are not the way to do it. The titles in the "Special Subjects" range from "Drugs, Cults, Gangs and the Adolescent," a nearly-two-hour DVD with instruction by "Carlos Davis, Director of Psychology Timberlawn Hospital," to my personal favorite, a DVD on how to really make it big in the world of sports gambling.

To show you the high quality you can expect from the "Special Subjects" Series, I'm going to set out the description for that last one, verbatim:

Professional Odds Maker SS 92303 Instruction by: Danny Sheriday, NFL Analyst Gambling and it's affect on high school, cllege and professional sports VHS Length: 58:44

Note the attention to detail as expressed in the misuse of both "it's" and "affect," as well as the misspelling of "college." Besides those, how can that DVD go wrong instructing your little Johnny or Johnette in the fine arts of bookmaking?

Oh, and there's no "Danny Sheriday," NFL Analyst. The NFL Analyst is Danny Sheridan. So I don't know who is supposed to be teaching gambling.



"The Fling Sock."

The Product: The Fling Sock. (Also available in small, as the "Saturnian Mini Fling Sock.")

Their Pitch: Fling Sock comes with a 10-point sales pitch from "FunAttic.com," which also explains the "Anatomy of a Fling Sock," including that the bag end is "Double bagged and filled with non toxic polyethylene pellets(the same material used for sandwich bags)" [I don't get that latter point; is the idea that it's safe, or a warning that I could be accidentally smothered by the product?] The highlights of the Top 10 reasons to buy a Fling Sock include:

"Anyone, and we mean anyone can throw a FlingSock." Then again, anyone can throw anything, so that's not really a selling point with me. I saw, yesterday, Mr F throw a laundry basket.

"Enduring play value. The charm doesn’t wear off. After a year it will still be your favorite toy." (Hopefully, replacing the half-a-Rudolph Mr F currently likes to play with.)

"The FlingSock is the most significant addition to the world of “catch” games since the Frisbee." Now, that is a claim I take issue with: the most significant addition to the world of "catch" games (why the quotes?) since the Frisbee was the Toobee, the Amazing Flying Can.

The most significant subtraction from the world of "catch" games? Jarts.

The Problem: It's a sock with a bean bag in it. That's all. Forget the highly-technical pitch aimed at the aeronautic engineer inside you ("the extra leverage from the tail gives a greater impetus to the fling sock so that it may fly much farther than an average bean bag would"), it's a bean bag in a sock. That's what you're giving your kid.

More problematic, still, is the fact that I'd bet that within 10 minutes of opening the Fling Sock, it'll be used for whacking a sibling or pet, Full-Metal-Jacket style:

Now, that's holiday fun!

But, worst of all, the Fling Sock apparently is intended for people so friendless and hopeless that it requires a five-page manual to suggest games and uses for the Fling Sock. Available for free online, the helpful instructions suggest you have a "facilitator" to get people lined up the appropriate distance apart, but from that slow start moves up, by page 3, to suggesting that people catch the Fling Sock with their feet:




If you could do that, you wouldn't be using a Fling Sock at the Christmas Day Party For Losers, you'd be playing for Ireland's World Cup Soccer Team. (If you can use your feet, you would not be playing for France, a country that doesn't bother following the only rule separating soccer from real sports.)

Skateboard Christmas Tree Ornament:

The Product: The "Red Flames Personalized Skateboard Ornament."

Their Pitch: Even the makers of the ornament don't really believe in this one; they say it's "One of the best designed skateboard ornaments we've seen." Not the best, or anything like that -- but it's one of the best. So, you know, you could do worse.

But the hard sell doesn't end there. The people at Russell Rhodes are like David Mamet characters, only for Christmas instead of elitist storylines, as they go on to push this little trinket on you by hitting all the right emotional chords:

"includes our holiday cord for convenient hanging." Got that? Not just a cord, but the Russell Rhodes holiday cord.

Still not sold? How about this:

"To complete the presentation, the skateboard ornament arrives nestled within our exclusive black velvet drawstring bag, ready to make a great baby shower gift."

A baby shower gift! This present isn't just for Christmas, but for any time. You could give it to an expectant Mom in, say, July, and in doing that, send the message "I couldn't think of anything you would really want, and also I think you're kid is going to grow up to be just like those dirtballs down the street who are always messing around in the Walgreen's parking lot."

The Problem: I've always disliked "Christmas ornaments" as "Christmas presents." (I also always get my mom a Christmas ornament, so I'm being extremely hypocritical here.) The reason I dislike them is that by the time you open the gift, the holiday it was intended for is over, more or less. So you open the ornament-gift, and then what? Hang it on your tree for the two or three days that the tree will be up serving as a reminder that the holiday season is over, that you're behind on the work you've been putting off for two weeks because of holiday spirit, and that the cat is choking on tinsel?

But more importantly, who is this ornament for? A mom or dad whose son or daughter is a skateboarder? The only mom I can think of who was proud of their young one skateboarding was Linda Hogan.

I'll bet even Tony Hawk's mom wishes he'd studied a little more in school and pulled his pants up with a belt now and then. Giving this ornament to a parent is just a not-so-subtle way of saying My kid will never be allowed to date yours.

But are you going to give it to the kid him- or herself? That's even worse. If you know the kid likes skateboarding, why not give something he or she can use to skateboard, like a helmet, or something even more useful, like counseling so that he or she doesn't waste his or her life? Giving a skateboard-loving kid this ornament says "I care enough to know something about you, but not enough to use that knowledge for any good."


Unwanted or Outdated Fatheads:

The Product: The "Elton Brand LA Clippers Fathead," The "Jay Cutler Broncos Fathead," the "Roger Staubach Fathead," and "The Yankee Stadium Logo Fathead."

Their Pitch: These are all available on clearance at Fathead.com, but that doesn't stop Fathead from putting a unique twist on the seldom-purchased end of their selection. They note major accomplishments that Roger Staubach had ("Superbown VI MVP, 6 Time Pro Bowler, Heisman Trophy Winner, Hall of Famer") and... um... that's it. The rest of these just get notations like the one for Cutler: (" Born April 29, 1983 Santa Claus, IN")

Which I didn't know: Jay Cutler was born in Santa Claus, Indiana. Very Christmas-y!

The Problem: Christmas-y, but still a terrible gift. Who wants the Jay Cutler Broncos Fathead? I'm pretty sure, given how bad he's playing, that nobody wants the Jay Cutler Fathead, period -- or Jay Cutler quarterbacking their team. But the Jay Cutler Broncos Fathead has even more limited appeal than Jay Cutler himself: It appeals to those Jay Cutler, or Broncos fans, who are living in the past... but not the good past, where the Broncos won some Superbowls. No, they're living in the mediocre past where Cutler was 17-20 as a starter for their mediocre team.

The other Fathead Remnants are just as bad, if not worse. Are you the instantly-nostalgic type? And do you love buildings more than the actual teams that play in them? Then you'll love the "old" Yankees-logo Fathead, celebrating a stadium that was put out of commission only a year ago.

Then there's Roger Staubach. Staubach played in the NFL for 10 years, from 1969 to 1979, starting from 1971 on. So people who could have watched Staubach play are now at least forty (like me), and maybe older than that. If you're a forty-year-old and you're still hanging sports decals on your wall, you either work for ESPN or you're a dork.

Sports wall hangings are for kids... but what kid wants a picture of Grandpa Staubach playing football? Why not give him a picture of Cliff Battles, while you're at it?

(You do know that Cliff Battles was the first NFL player ever to rush for 200 yards in a game, don't you? What'd you do in college, pay attention in class? Sucker.)

The absolute worst of the remnant Fatheads has to be Elton Brand of the Los Angeles Clippers, though. You know what the claim to fame of the LA Clippers is? That they're so unpopular, their team hat was instantly a clue that a murder suspect was lying.

Seriously: Jesse Anderson murdered his wife in 1992, and tried to blame it on roving African-American children. His otherwise-perfect plan fell apart mostly because his "proof" was an LA Clippers hat supposedly worn by one of the criminals; it turned out that Anderson had bought the hat from a local youth a few days before. The Clippers' hat was memorable because nobody else had one.

I don't know who Elton Brand is, but I do know that the Clippers are synonymous with failure in basketball the way the Buffalo Bills are synonymous with.. well, failure in football. So I figure this kid:



Is thinking "Why do my parents hate me?"

While the rest of us are thinking "Why is his room mostly pink?"

Special note: If you're not the sportsy type, Fathead.com will let you still enjoy oversized wall decorations suited to your tastes, from categories like "generic sports," to Barack Obama to some sort of frightening Melting Mickey Mouse:



Jock Jam Music.

The Product: "ESPN Presents: Jock Jams Vol. 4 CD."

Their Pitch: This fourth volume alternates "then-current" songs with "more timeless (sports) arena-rockers."

[Note: "Timeless" is a superlative; things can't be kinda or more timeless.]
[Note, 2: Thanks for clarifying, copywriter, that it's "(sports) arena rockers" we're getting... on Jock Jams.]

The timeless tracks are Jump Around and Mueve La Cadera. On that last one: timeless is apparently not synonymous with popular or even known about by anyone outside of the tiny department at ESPN charged with putting together this CD.

Added selling point:

"The fact this is volume four of the JOCK JAMS series gives you some idea of how popular they've proven to be."

The Problem: Yes, the existence of volume four of JOCK JAMS could be proof of how popular the CDs are... or of how sadly deluded gift-givers are. Because "popular" is not the word I would apply to songs like "Hear the Organ Get Wicked" by Ray Castoldi. Or this one:

Here's what you'll get if you buy Volume 4:

That is, to be clear, a remix of several other remixed songs. But this one has Dick Vitale on it, so that's infinitely worse.

There's also an Austin Powers' "Yeah, Baby" track opening the album... but don't get your hopes up, because it's not the yeah baby you were hoping for. Instead, it's Austin saying "It's my happening baby, and it freaks me out."

If you've already bought the sports lover on your list Jock Jams Volume 4, well, shame on you -- but it's not too late to refuse to buy Jock Jams Volume 5, featuring the first-ever collaboration between Temperer, Mya, and Van Earl Wright. Strangely, I could not find a video for that song anywhere on Youtube. So I'll send you on your way with a combination of the two greatest cultural expressions available in America today: Hannah Montana, and the original Jock Jams Megamix:

 

Click here to go to Thinking The Lions.

This appeared first on The Best Of Everything; you may need to go to that site to watch the Videos

 

It's time for another Whodathunkit?, that feature I run just before every major event in American life to give you the facts you really want to know about that big event. It's the only blog post guaranteed* to make you a hit at the next big social event!
(*note: "guaranteed" means "not guaranteed.)

This Whodathunkit?, as the title says, will give you the Three Best Things You Want To Know About Thanksgiving, which by my calendar is less than a week away. (That's how you know my calendar is an American calendar: It has Thanksgiving on the proper day, the day God and Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt decreed. Some calendars -- I'm looking at you Canada-- claim Thanksgiving is some other day, which is completely ridiculous. Canada's Thanksgiving, for example, is supposedly set on the 2nd Monday in October, and it meant to celebrate -- give Canadian thanks for -- the end of the harvest. That's so dumb. Everyone knows that "Thanksgiving" has nothing to do with the harvest and everything to do with surviving through the winter, or, as I pointed out last year, hoping to survive through thewinter.

Yes, those Pilgrims were an optimistic bunch, having a Thanksgiving dinner before they had anything to give Thanks for, but at least they weren't so strange as to set the holiday on some Monday in October. Which itself isn't as bad as some other countries' Thanksgivings. Like Croatia's Thanksgiving. Did you know that Croatia celebrates Thanksgiving?

Did you know that Croatia was a country? Now you do, and you'll thank me the next time you're watching Jeopardy! and the category is Countries That Sort of Rhyme With 'Moesha'.

Croatia's Thanksgiving doesn't give thanks for being Canadian, or for not-yet-having-survived the winter, like real Thanksgivings do. Instead, Croatia's Thanksgiving celebrates "the seizure of the city of Knin by the Croatian Army during Operation Storm in the War of Independence." The highlight, that website says, "is the ceremonially lifting of the Croatian flag on the Knin fortress"

Which sounds dramatic and all, but is it as touching a ceremony as when the President pardons a turkey? I think not.

Another country that gives thanks is China, but they do it exactly the way you'd expect a bunch of Communists to do it: By using "Chinese Thanksgiving," or "Chung Ch'ui," as an occasion to exchange traditional "moon cakes," only the traditional mooncakes are used, in times of war, to hide secret messages and "thwart their enemies," according to the website "More4Kids," which is obviously very diligently working to make sure that Kids don't trust the rest of the world, judging by their comment that "there is a lot of bad stuff happening around the world," and so kids should be thankful they live in America.

In America, at least, Thanksgiving is still celebrated on the proper day -- a Thursday in November, although which particular Thursday it is depends heavily on whether the president needs to jump-start the economy; I'm surprised that President Obama didn't decide to move Thanksgiving up a week earlier this year, the way FDR did during the Depression. The Great Depression, that is. Well, the other Great Depression.

Anyway, Obama didn't use that trick to get our economy going, preferring instead to try the "let's let people get new pickup trucks using federal cash" trick. Apparently, the secret manual of knowledge about Americans, the manual that presidents use to control Americans' lives, has been lost.

Or maybe Obama didn't need to move Thanksgiving up, since corporations have done an effective job of ignoring Thanksgiving entirely and simply starting Christmas whenever they darn well please, as evidenced by the November 6 release of the 1,000,000,000th version of A Christmas Carol.

Jim Carrey's latest desperate bid for our attention -- next he'll resort simply to setting his hair on fire in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York -- isn't the only thing jumping the gun on the Christmas season and relegating Thanksgiving to the back burner. ABC Family is airing two Christmas movies tonight, November 20, but they're three days behind Richie Rich's Christmas Wish and Merry Madagascar. I hope Richie's wish wasn't that Thanksgiving continue to be a separate, independent holiday.

Because it won't be. I predicted last year that eventually Thanksgiving would join the ranks of holidays we don't really celebrate anymore, and this year is proving that prediction even more true. A local Middleton, Wisconsin bar advertised today on the radio that people could watch the Packers-Lions game "on Thursday" at the bar. The Packers and Lions play on Thanksgiving, so not only did this bar offer to let people come sit in a bar at midday on Thanksgiving, but the ad didn't even mention that the day was Thanksgiving. In the ad, it was just Thursday.

This might well be the last year that Thanksgiving is even a holiday; it may be that next year Thanksgiving isn't celebrated at all. Preposterous! you say? (Good for you! Nice vocabulary!) It's not preposterous, though: as more and more people have to work on Thanksgiving, at bars and at the stores that are now open during the day on Thanksgiving, how long will it be before everyone just decides to work? If all your kids and relatives have to work at the stores where people want to shop, how is that a holiday? Three years ago, four major retailers were planning on being open more or less their regular hours on Thanksgiving. Now, almost every store is open at least part of the day on Thanksgiving, including retail giant Fashion Bug.

Fashion Bug.

But can you blame them? If everyone else is open on Thanksgiving, and they are, then Fashion Bug has to open, too, or all the holiday shoppers will spend all their holiday money on factory remnants at other stores. So my prediction last year - -that someday Thanksgiving will mean "eating Turkey Hot Pockets and McDonald's Pumpkin Pies while standing in line at Best Buy" is closer than ever to coming true. I predict that we are at most two years away from people simply opting to have their big "Thanksgiving dinner," if they have one, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, while using Thanksgiving to either work, or to shop.

Until then, Thanksgiving is theoretically still a big event, and we'd better make the most of it, which I'm doing by providing you The Three Best Things You WANT to know about Thanksgiving. As always, I will leave the boring, ordinary facts to the mainstream media; let them tell you how to deep fry a turkey without blowing up your house (hint: you can't, and it's foolish to try), let them talk about the football games and the crowds of people lining up for Black Friday (soon to be Black Wednesday). Here at The Best of Everything, I give you stuff that will amaze your friends, inspire your neighbors, dumbfound your acquaintances, and otherwise exhaust your thesaurus with synonyms for amaze and friends.

Friendly-amazing things like...

1. Thanksgiving is a more philosophical holiday than you think, raising profound questions in our deep-thinking society.

Many holidays are an occasion for some introspection or soul-searching. On the Fourth of July, we ask questions like What's the meaning of liberty, and I wonder if that firecracker would really blow my hand off if I held it while it exploded? On Valentine's Day, we ponder such quizzes as How many roses can I get using the $1.78 I have in my change dish in my car, and Why didn't I plan ahead and save a couple bucks from last night's poker game?

But Thanksgiving brings out the really big questions. Questions like this person's question to "Askville:"

What would you prepare your vampire lover on Thanksgiving?

That's a real question, or at least a question asked on Askville, which makes me think that whoever asked it was serious, because a question like that is too stupid to not be serious. (That person apparently continued to have problems that holiday season, asking what to give her vampire lover for Christmas...)

I was curious about what other questions people might ask about Thanksgiving. So I went to Google -- how everyone, including Richard Dawkins, proves everything, nowadays; Google is the foundation of science, replacing dark matter in the lives of scientists who don't want to think -- I went to Google and did a search for What do you do on Thanksgiving. I was sure I'd get lots of questions suggested, given that just typing What do you do led to these other questions that people had asked:

I did pause a moment when I saw the fifth question down, but then I got distracted from feeling sorry for that person and instead wondered if perhaps the same person had searched those questions in order, and, if so, what that person's day had been like, first realizing that they're bored, then meeting a drunken sailor, then wanting to sing the drunken sailor song, but their iPod freezes up, then looking up the lyrics, only to realize that the drunken sailor has broken her heart and made her cry, then...

Well, anyway...as I continued typing, the questions got more elegant, yet:

But eventually I finished typing and found an entire article about what to do on Thanksgiving in Orlando, which I read, only to find out that in Orlando, stores are open on Thanksgiving, too, so Thanksgiving is dying even in the Magic Kingdom.

Thanksgiving doesn't just raise questions about vampires and sex and Disney World, though. It also makes people ponder the origins of life, something being done by the person who called the Butterball Turkey hotline to ask if turkeys have belly buttons.

No. They don't -- I hadn't ever even thought of the question, and now I know the answer! But that person's question has made me wonder this: What kind of person sits around wondering whether turkeys have belly buttons, and why didn't that person just look at the turkey they were cooking?

That Butterball hotline gets 10,000+ calls on Thanksgiving Day; I wonder whether anyone calls it the rest of the year, and whether one could call for non-turkey related questions? Like, if you couldn't get through to the Kleenex hotline, could you call the Butterball hotline and ask them, instead?

And did you know Kleenex had a hotline? They do, and I was going to look up the number but I got distracted by the fact that there's a frequently-asked questions section of the Kleenex Website, one which includes this (apparently frequently-asked) question:

What are some innovations Kleenex® Brand Tissue has introduced to the facial tissue category?

As I read that, I imagined hundred, no, thousands, no, tens of thousands of people looking up the phone number for Kleenex, and then calling up to (breathlessly) ask the operator: What are some innovations Kleenex® Brand Tissue has introduced to the facial tissue category?

One innovation, by the way, is that Kleenex invented the first three-ply facial tissue. America Rules!

One thing Kleenex leaves off its site is the credentials it's help line operators have. Butterball doesn't do that; they trumpet the experience their people have: "Each of the turkey experts attends "Turkey U" to prepare for the calls that will be coming in."

But enough of that. On to number 2:

2. New York Isn't The Only Place Holding A Parade, You Know. I'm always amazed that parades still exist, period. They seem so anachronistic, like pocket watches or intact families. Who wants to go sit outside and watch bands go by, and local politicians riding in convertibles waving, when we could be watching a little kid forced to memorize a speech for his dad's benefit? And by memorize, I mean "read from the papers he's holding in his hands and the cue cards that aren't shown on camera:"

You know what's sad about that? That kid was, I bet, forced to do that in an effort to get him onto TV and make him famous (and his parents rich), and the best his dad could parlay that into was a chance to say "Let's Play Hockey" at a hockey game. Even Balloon Dad did better than that -- he got dinner in New York City with ABC executives.

But being in New York means that Balloon Dad and Hockey Kid will miss the other Thanksgiving Day parades, like the "Montgomery County Thanksgiving Parade," which will have their own giant balloons and floats, but which will no doubt be put to shame by the real Thanksgiving parade at the site of the real Thanksgiving: Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the real Pilgrims celebrated real Thanksgiving...

... In July...

But never mind that! There's a parade in Plymouth that celebrates everything Thanksgiving! It's got a detailed model of the Mayflower! It's got a depiction of the first Thanksgiving in 1621! It's got...

... a replica Victorian church complete with carolers?

Dang it! Et tu, Plymouth? Even in the Cradle of Thanksgiving, Christmas is taking over? It has to be Christmas carolers, right? After all, there's no Thanksgiving carols, or even Thanksgiving songs, right? Of course there aren't.

On to number 3!

3. There's are Thanksgiving Songs! I should really learn to read on before I ask those questions.

If it's caroling you want, Plymouth, and people who look past Thanksgiving to get to Christmas, then it's caroling you will get.

Everybody thinks there's no such thing as a Thanksgiving Carol, but everybody's wrong, and everybody should have asked me, and should have asked The Knox Clan, who wrote themselves some Thanksgiving carols, carols they've posted on The Knox Clan blog, carols like "Something Smells," an unfortunately-named carol sung to the tune of Silver Bells, with lyrics like:

Should I spray
The stink away
And have a take-out Thanksgiving Day

Festive!

But, you say, those are just knockoffs of Christmas carols, aren't they?

You're very perceptive. If you won't accept those as Thanksgiving songs, then how about actual traditional Thanksgiving songs, songs that you know and love from your childhood, provided your childhood was in the 1670s or something. Songs like Here we go over to Silly Tilly's, a delightful song celebrating the animals' Thanksgiving together. Or songs like the stirring Singing, the Reapers Homeward Come, which features this stirring opening verse:

Singing, the reapers homeward come, lo! lo!
Merrily singing the harvest home, lo! lo!
Along the field, along the road,
Where autumn is scattering leaves abroad,
Homeward cometh the ripe last load, lo! lo!

Now, that song may not exactly be your cup of tea, but it's at least a billion times better than every single thing Lady GaGa will do in her life. Although, in the interest of fairness, I feel compelled to note that road and abroad aren't really rhymes.

I tried searching for a video for Singing, The Reapers Homeward Come, but all I found on Youtube was this:



But that video does have its own charms, so it was worth the effort.

The number one Thanksgiving carol of all time, though, is certainly Alice's Restaurant Massacree, which you probably know as "Alice's Restaurant" and my kids know as that song that I play which goes on forever and is just a guy talking.

"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" tells the absolutely true* (*probably not) story of how Arlo Guthrie dumped some garbage for his friend, Alice, and got a ticket for littering, a ticket that later kept him from being drafted into the Vietnam War.

Arlo gets all the fame from that song, even though it was abandoned-church living Alice M. Brock who set off all the events by being a lousy housekeeper.

Alice M. Brock deserves a little fame herself, for setting off that probably-not-true chain of events, and she's gotten a little fame herself: she's not just a lousy housekeeper with questionable taste in friends, but also an author, having written and illustrated the book How To Massage Your Cat. She also illustrated a book, owned an art gallery, and writes a blog. The blog is called "Alice's Blog," and can be found by clicking this link.

On that blog, I learned that Alice isn't just memorialized in Arlo's song, but in another song, as well, the aptly-titled Another Song About Alice:



How many people do you know who have inspired two songs about themselves? I only know, like, ten. Counting our cats.

Now, let's have Arlo sing us out:



Have a Happy Thanksgiving!


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Mine was good; I saw my son & we went to see the movie called Planet 51, which was really cute...

but I also got into a fight with my mom & then my dad took her side, so that got a little ugly...

And Sunday (yesterday) I saw two friends of mine & we went out to eat at Rally's & then to the library & then one of them came over to my place & we played Rummy. So we had fun, but the one friend kept trying to bum money off of me (like he always does, ugh!)

So all in all, it was a pretty good weekend. How was yours?

Hey all of you Phoenix fans!

 

This buzzed about band is coming to NYC on December 3rd for a private event. Enter to win for a chance to see them live!!! More info here: http://radiobase1.clearchannel.com/front/OpenContest.asp?Action=Login&SurveyID=45081&zx=163

 

Check out their page on NEW! Discover & Uncover: http://www.iheartradio.com/new2/featured/f/2389&cmp=contest_phoenix

 

You can also catch "Lisztomania" on NEW! Discover & Uncover radio:

http://www.iheartradio.com/mediaplayer/?stream_id=4412&channel_title=NEW!%20Discover%20&%20Uncover

 

Good luck!

Sometimes I think we really need to re-examine our logic...

A few weeks ago I was riding into downtown Macon with my good friend, Charlie Deaton. We’d been working together all morning at his office, and decided to head down there and go to Jeneane’s Cafe for lunch.

While on our way to Jeneane‘s, we passed by the newly built Georgia Music Hall of Fame, and then, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.

I couldn't help but notice as we rode by these buildings just how beautiful they are. They're both state-of-the-art structures, and are aesthetically quite pleasing. They have everything grade “A” facilities should have - landscaped grounds, multiple sculptures, and wonderful ornamental fixtures.

One other thing they happened to have was this old bum who was walking right past them as we rode by....

This wasn't just any old bum. This was a haint ugly old bum. His gut was large enough that it almost seemed to need a wheelbarrow to support it. His face appeared to have been unshaven for days, his cheeks were gray instead of pink, and his overall countenance rivaled that of a very angered badger. He was, as Ed Jr. puts it, "triple-haint ugly."

And there he was walking right in front of these two incredibly perfect buildings...

Immediately a thought hit me - why were we taxpayers allowing this? Why would we spend millions of dollars on these beautiful buildings just to allow one Charlie Pound look-alike to ruin their beauty? It makes absolutely no sense at all. Is this what we’re spending our tax money for, to provide this ghastly contrast between pure beauty and absolute haintness?

There’s an easier way. Charlie and I thought it up as we were digging into a couple of slices of lemon meringue pie. It’s profound, yet simple, which should mean it'll have some chance for wide spread appeal and acceptance. Just consider the following idea...

We all know that when people go to renew their driver's licenses that they have to stand in front of one of those little mounted cameras in order to get their pictures taken. It would seem to us that it’d be an easy thing to hook up a computer to this camera that has an image of a decent looking person scanned into it. This person could be a level "six" on a haint-to-beauty scale of one to ten. When the camera is activated, it could scan the face of the person being photographed, and, give them an objective numeric rating based upon the afore-mentioned scale.

A six could be the passing score - this would allow the person to walk out into public just as they are. Less than a six? Why, a government issued mask (maybe like those the pro wrestlers wear) could be issued to the offendee. We could insure that the mask itself would lend itself to the beautification of the area the guilty party spends lots of time in. For example, green tinted masks could be issued for country residents (to blend in with the scenery), and concrete or asphalt colored masks could be utilized by city dwellers.

This concept would not only improve city and county beautification, but could also cause a whole series of cottage industry spin-offs. Imagine apartment communities for those with scores from one to three (no lights needed there), or guard services for those with scores of eight or greater. Human scarecrows could suddenly come into vogue. Bottom line, it doesn't take a genius to see that this thing could be an incredible boon for business. And if business does well, the tax dollars collected go up, and more government sponsored services could be rendered to all citizens. I modestly have to say that this is an incredible idea, it could even go worldwide, and ya'll can thank Charlie and I for it if you happen run into either one of us one day.

Wonder why City Hall isn't returning any of my phone calls these days?

Did anyone see Lady Gaga's mirror-shattering, flame-infused, two-song performance on ABC's broadcast of the American Music Awards (AMA) last night?

Thoughts?