St. Valentine's Day: Greeting Cards v. Dead Goats

I've never been a fan of people that sit around and trash holidays. There's always some guy sitting in the corner of a Christmas party that says, "Christmas is materialistic crap." These types are looking to have an impact, which they do. They make everyone looking for the rum punch tell their friends to avoid the loser in the corner.

Valentine's Day is no different. People that don't have a hope in hell of getting laid hate Valentine's Day. But hatred isn't enough. You need a reason to hate something. It's simply less humiliating to say that you hate Valentine's Day because it's too commercial, as opposed to saying that you dislike it because you can't score at the office bender.

People that hate holidays don't get it. When they see a Christmas party, a Valentine's card, or an Easter bunny, they immediately jump on the no-fun bandwagon and think that all of these things used to mean something ultra-serious. They take the high road and declare that we're too commercial, too modern, that somehow we corrupted something sacred. What bores.

For the losers: a) holidays are simply an excuse to party. b) why aren't you out helping the poor on Christmas Eve, rather than drinking our free booze and bitching about life until you're the last to leave the house? c) why are Christian holidays the only ones to take it on the chin from people that never step inside a church? I don't hear anyone saying how we've corrupted New Year's Eve or Halloween. Hanukkah, Canada Day, and the Fourth of July go by with nary a bitter word, but show someone an Easter bunny and suddenly they were outside the cave when Christ moved the rock.

I've got no problem with the idea that Jesus was born, then rose from the dead, and all the rest of it. If that's what you believe, go for it. And sure, I guess it's handy to know that some guy named Valentinus died in the 3rd century AD. But this isn't what I'm thinking about when I fill out the cards and put my friends' names on them (well, let's be honest; I send e-cards like everyone else). I may think about Christ and Val in private from time to time, but when it comes to being friendly with friends, I'm all about the "Merry Christmas. Pass the bottle." And there is nothing wrong with that.

Incidentally, there were three - or two, depending on where you get your info - of these Valentinus characters, and no one knows exactly what it is they did, or why one of them (or all of them) is a saint. Call it canonization by committee. One was a priest, one was a bishop, and one was a guy in Africa, back when Africa was the name of a Roman province. All of them lived and died in the 3rd century AD. Apparently they became martyrs, but again, no one knows why. To get past this little hurdle, Pope Gelasius I said that their works were "known only to God."

Gelasius I sounds like a party boy. He decreed the feast of St. Valentine in 496, and like any good party animal, he used an excuse that couldn't be impeached:

"Gel, why did you name this feast after Valentinus?"
"God knows."

Today's version:

"Sean, why did you tell people that it was okay to party in my living room and wreck the place?"
"Ask Gelasius I."

The roots of St. Valentine's Day will never be known, but we have some clues. Some argue it was used to supersede the pagan festival of Lupercalia, which was still being celebrated in 5th century Rome. Lupercalia was also known as Februatio, from the root word "februare," which means "to purify." The festival was celebrated on February 15th, and its beginnings may be older than the founding of Rome itself.

Luperci - a collection of pagan priests - would dress themselves in goatskin, then sacrifice two goats and a dog. They would then smear the sacrificial blood on two young Luperci, who were expected to laugh and smile at the gift. Then these two Luperci would take whips made from the dead animals and run around the city, using them to whip girls and women, who would line up for the honor. This, it was believed, would aid in fertility and ward off sterility.

Who knows how much of any of this is true. If you ask ten friends what happened at a party last weekend, you'll get an idea of how skeptical you should be of history, ancient or otherwise.

Anyway, by the 5th century, the pagan festival was outlawed and it was up to Gelasius I to kill the name outright. He did a good job. Today, everyone knows St. Valentine's Day, but nobody says too much about their local Luperci smearing them with goat blood. Still, we can thank the Romans and their bloody festivals for the name of the month in which St. Valentine's Day is celebrated.

February was the last month of the Roman calender (March, named after Mars, was the first), but no matter. February is our second month, and we use its 14th day as an excuse to finally get up the nerve to ask out the chick that comes into the coffee shop every morning. Should you decide to whip her with goat skin, I won't post your bail.

As for all of the people out there that are going to be ticked off about another Valentine's Day, in a word: relax. Seeing someone receive a card from Hallmark cannot be nearly as stressful as watching your mom get hit with a dead goat. And if you'd get off your butts and into the swing, you might just get some action this year. Buy a card, pick a flower, and tell the chick in aisle 9 that her dress looks nice.

Try it. No matter if your mood or your sensitivity training tells you differently, you might (just might) like it. And probably she will, too. Women must be getting tired of expecting something from men on Valentine's Day. According to the Greeting Card Association, a whopping 85% of all Valentine's cards are bought by women. If that's the case, competition facing an average guy for a woman's hand is so low as to be laughable.

So start laughing and enjoy the party. For once.

Thoughts on Gun Control in The US

The Political Tidal Wave Recedes

I didn't have much to say after the mass murder of children and teachers in Connecticut on December 14, 2012. I knew that it would only take about an hour before the horror faded into memory, to be replaced by political axe grinding for gun control in the US. I didn't feel like getting involved in that. It seemed distasteful, especially at Christmas. But I knew the political tidal wave would arrive within hours after the massacre.

On this, social media didn't disappoint: within minutes, my Facebook and Twitter feeds were alive with cries for more gun control in the US.

I wasn't too bothered by this. This is the way political tidal waves work. I knew the cries would become grumbles, then whispers, and finally they would recede as if nothing had happened. Carnage in the households of those directly affected, but beyond that, nothing. At least, until the next massacre in the United States.

Those last two words are key: United States. When something happens in the US, it makes headlines around the world, and everyone comments on how US citizens should live their lives. When a massacre happens in Norway, there aren't too many calls to question laws in that country, even when the guy knocks off 77 people and draws 21 years (yes, yes, they can keep him longer if they deem him a threat to society - but should that possibility even exist?). Similarly, when a man walks into the cafeteria at one of the biggest malls in Canada and opens fire, the proponents of Canada's laws are silent on the fact that Canada's gun laws obviously failed.

When it happens anywhere else in the world, it's about the victims and flowers on the sidewalk. When it happens in the United States, it's about the politics. Either way, the pain for the families of the victims goes on forever, but for the rest of us, whatever "pain" we feel fades after a matter of days.

There's nothing wrong with this. It's not cynicism, it's human nature. I've written before that caring is about proximity, both in time and place. Terrorist in Iraq? No worry. Terrorist in my city? Worry a little. Terrorist in my living room? Worry a lot.

So it is with time. The further back, the less and less we care about it, until it might as well not have happened at all. So long as it didn't happen directly to us, we lose our ability to care about things pretty quickly, no matter how big or important they seemed at the time. It has to be this way, otherwise we'd be basketcases.

When I'm in a smartass mood, I sometimes ask people how things are going in Myanmar lately. Or Fukushima. Or Haiti. I usually get some quizzical looks, but these places were a really big deal not too long ago. I couldn't escape them on Facebook. People were asking me for money, or posting how they were going to fly somewhere and help. With regards to Myanmar, there were people saying an invasion might be advisable, while some women's libbers were going to send their bras and underwear there to embarrass the regime.

That was 4 years ago. It was a major news story, and a lot of people really cared about it. I wonder how many people remember that it started as a response to a hurricane? In any case, all the hurricane did was uncover what a godawful mess Myanmar is all the time. Myanmar is still a mess, but we've since moved on to the BP oil spill, nuclear reactors in Japan, the Occupy movement, presidential candidates talking about Sesame Street, gun control in the USA. That Myanmar hurricane might as well have happened in 1920.

Which is when the worst massacre in a US school took place. May 18, 1920. It happened in Bath Township, Michigan. A man named Andrew Kehoe set off bombs at his house and farm, and then at a local school. After rescuers arrived at the school to tend to the wounded, Kehoe arrived and set off a truck bomb at the site, killing himself and a few more people. 38 children and 6 adults lost their lives. It was discovered that before the destruction, Kehoe had also killed his wife.

It must have seemed like hell on Earth in that little Michigan town. If it happened today, the wall-to-wall press coverage about the demise of American society and culture would be suffocating, and it would be hard to disagree. Yet it was almost 100 years ago. In our mind's eye, we tend to see those olden days in sepia tint, and can easily imagine a man doffing his cap as a lady walks past. Men used to do that. They also used to gas people at Treblinka.

The killings in Bath Township show us that evil is old, but the killings in Connecticut remind us that evil never dies.

100 years ago, of course, there were no video games, and not too many violent movies. The motive for Kehoe's crime appears to be foreclosure on his house, as well as a loss in a town election. Maybe he was under pressure, felt slighted, and snapped. Maybe he was just evil or nuts. Whatever it was, he formed a hideous plan in his head and he brought it to fruition, without any help from computers, video games, or the latest bogeyman, the National Rifle Association.

Point is, there's really no way to defend against any of these people, and nothing is going to stop killings like this from happening again, though it may make people feel better to talk about it.

Gun laws or not, a nut will find a way to do what he wants to do. I'm of the reasoning that the US has a large population, and sooner or later one of those people is going to go off the rails. Would it be better if the person didn't have easy access to a gun? Sure. But people don't have easy access to guns in Canada or Norway, and people still get shot. A few days ago, two people were shot at a nightclub about a mile from my front door. How'd the shooter get the gun in a place you "can't get guns?" Beats me. But he got it, and he used it.

Looking in One Direction

Again, the hew and cry isn't about the guns. It's about the United States. If it was about the guns and - more generally - criminal violence, then people would be audibly outraged by what is going on in Brazil and Mexico. They are the bad boys of rock 'n roll when it comes to murder. Especially Brazil.

Though the US has more guns per person than anywhere else, the US murder rate hovers around 5 per 100,000, or a little less than the worldwide average of 6.9. Mexico and Brazil sit around 22 and 21 respectively. Average-wise, though, they are as nothing when it comes to Honduras. Though the body count in Honduras is much lower than in Mexico and Brazil, the average is a whopping 91 people murdered per 100,000 population.

Last year, the US saw over 12,000 people die in intentional homicides of all kinds. Chump change. According to the UN, between 1979 and 2003, half a million Brazilians were killed by firearms alone, or roughly 20,000 people per year. This average doesn't do the butcher's bill justice, as 2004 saw 36,000 Brazilians shot and killed. It hasn't gotten better since.

Simply put, Brazil and Mexico are very violent places. You have a much better chance of being killed by intentional homicide in Brazil and Mexico than you do in the US. But when it comes to protesting violence, no one ever mentions those countries in my social media feeds. Ever.

Cop in Brasilandia. Photo: CNN.

No surprise. People are busy. Why dig, when things are served up for you? People see America on their TVs, computers, and tablets every day whether they want to or not. Ask anyone on Earth what they think of the US and they will have an answer of some kind. Ask those same people what they think of Brazil and they may mention soccer or beaches. Leastways, they might know that Brazil has the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics on the horizon. They probably don't know that someone is shot in Brazil every few minutes, that the country has a growing crack epidemic, and that drug gangs execute police officers on a regular basis.

America has a great megaphone but a lousy publicist.

Why "Gun Control" in the US Won't Happen

I hazard to guess that when people say "gun control," they don't mean they want gun regulations tightened. They want guns to cease to exist. I don't think I know anyone who says "gun control" and actually means something like, "Yes, US citizens should own guns, but no assault rifles, no semi-automatic pistols, a limit of ten shotgun shells per person, and a 2 month waiting period before taking a weapon home."

No, when I hear people say, "The US needs gun control," I know what they mean is, "US citizens shouldn't have guns."

This is why I'm not one way or the other on "gun control." It's not an argument worth having, because nothing is going to substantively change gun ownership policy in the United States. You might as well tell me that you think the sky should be purple. I will agree with you to save time, but I know it's a load, so I don't bother getting into it.

The gun issue has been argued before the Supreme Court for decades, and the gun side keeps winning. Some people may detest the 2nd Amendment, but there it sits. To ban guns outright and take them away from US citizens can't be done without amending the constitution, and that simply is not going to happen. Besides, even if you could ban them, it's a practical impossibility that you'll ever round them all up. There are millions of guns in American households. No chance.

I yield to no one in the volume of my giggles when President Obama calls himself a constitutional scholar, or when he swears to be a defender of that document, but even he knows this argument's already over. If I had to guess, I'd say he'll let this issue drift off to nowhere over the next month or two. But if he actually did try to get something through Congress, it will probably be some kind of high capacity magazine limit, or a stricter background check on gun buyers. A bone to throw to the anti-gun crowd to say he tried.

Contrary to what I'm reading and hearing everywhere, NRA members are not the only people who own guns or want the right to own them. Every story needs a villain, but right now NRA membership is around 4.5 million people. That's not a small number, but it's not exactly a quarter of the country, either. The city of Philadelphia has more people than that. So there are a lot of people out there who aren't carrying NRA membership cards, but they are carrying guns - and they vote Democrat.

Obama knows it. This Gallup poll taken after the Connecticut shootings shows that a little more than half of Americans would like to see some stricter rules on the sale of firearms, but when it comes to an outright ban on assault weapons and especially handguns, you can forget it. Even after 24/7 coverage of Newtown children being killed by firearms, 75% of the country rejects the notion a handgun ban and, as the Gallup pollster states, Americans' views on the sale of assault rifles are unchanged. The slight majority, 51%, remain opposed to making it illegal to manufacture, sell, or possess semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles.

Piers Morgan may make fun of NRA spokespeople and tell them that they're "incredibly stupid," but Morgan is 1) a Brit, and 2) working in a professional bubble surrounded by people who think like he does. In short, when it comes to America, he just doesn't get it (co-hosting America's Got Talent probably didn't help, either). If he thinks the NRA is the problem, he's way off. The problem - if you believe it is one - is that a lot of Americans view the right to bear arms as an important part of their daily lives.

I remember the first time I saw a gun up close and personal while I was staying in LA. I'd held and fired weapons before, but never seen one in a civilian setting. I opened the trunk of a friend's car, pulled out a bag, and saw a pistol on the floor. I told her later, "Hey, I saw a gun sitting in your car." She replied, "Yeah, my dad got me that." Her tone would have been no different if I had told her I had seen a pair of scissors.

Many Americans, of all political stripes, are used to guns. They've seen them, handled them, fired them. They don't like massacres, but they don't like the idea of someone taking their gun rights away, either.

As for the president, after some tough talk early on, he has slowly begun distancing himself from "gun control." Here is what he had to say two days after the massacre, in a moving and poignant speech:

We can't tolerate this anymore...These tragedies must end, and to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and it is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can't be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.

Fourteen days later (and perhaps not coincidentally 3 days after that Gallup poll came out), in an interview with David Gregory, the president was asked what his single biggest priority would be for his second term. The president was generous, and stated four big priorities. In order, they were: 1) Immigration. 2) Stabilize the economy. 3) Energy policy. 4) Make sure taxes don't go up on middle class families.

David Gregory noticed something was missing and quickly cued the president with this: "Those are four huge things and you didn't mention after Newtown, although I know you're thinking about it, new gun regulations."

Heh.

David Gregory and several other people working in network news might be thinking about new gun regulations, but apparently it slipped the president's mind. So the president gave David a few minutes of boilerplate - task forces, we'll see what public opinion looks like, I don't want to see mass murder happen again - and then they moved on to foreign policy.

Here's the rub, and it's a rough one for people who don't like the idea of American civilians owning guns: the majority of US citizens want the right to own a firearm. That simple. The Colorado and Connecticut massacres of 2012 didn't change that. It may have seemed like they did on your social media feeds and in conversations over dinner, but that was a brief snapshot in time with people who mainly agree with you, anyway. Fact is, a person can lament what happened in Connecticut and still want to own a firearm. That may seem like a paradox to an outsider, but to many Americans, it's not something they lose sleep over.

A friend of mine remarked to me about the 2nd Amendment and how it should be scrapped. I said, "It's the rules. They're allowed to own guns."

He said, "But the rules are 200 years old."

"I know," I said. "But it's the rules there."

They won't change anytime soon.

Reporter Asks the Right Question

There's times when everyone wants to ask this question. A teacher, a cop, a short order cook, hell, even the president of the United States. Sooner or later, we're asked to do something so trivial and moronic that we just have to ask this question (FYI, the Not Safe For Work lamp is lit):


Angry News Reporter Just Wants to Know What the !#%^ Deal Is - Watch More Funny Videos

Child Abusers Brag About Experimenting with Child's Mental Health

I don't know which is creepier: the losers in this next story, or the fact that I'm so bored with this kind of stuff that I don't feel like writing about it.

Ah, well. Once more unto the breach, so forth:

A British couple who raised their child as "gender neutral" in a bid to break free from stereotyping revealed Friday that their five-year-old is a boy.
Beck Laxton and her partner Kieran, from Sawston in central England, referred to their son, Sasha, as "the infant" and dressed the youngster in ambiguous outfits to keep his sex a secret from friends and strangers.

Laxton, a 46-year-old web editor, told the Cambridge News of her reasons for raising a "genderless" child.
"I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping," she said. "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?"

Oh, I dunno. I guess I'll give it a shot: you're an idiot and a child abuser. How does that box fit, toots?

"That's Not Exactly What We Would've Expected."

I save most of my contempt for sportscasters, but usually plain old "journalists" are good for a laugh, too.

Someone had the heart to put together some of 2011's worst moments from TV news. Here they are.

This Just In: Flying Sucks

Pardon me if I'm not slack jawed with surprise:

If the thought of traveling during the Christmas holidays makes you ill, you're in good company. A new travel industry survey finds that 39 percent would rather take the bus than fly.

Irked by new travel security requirements, higher traffic and the clutter of presents, many air travelers express frustration about flying.

If anyone today told me that they "enjoyed" flying, I'd call the men in white coats.

Photo: seenonvarick.com

Blonde. Camera. Fail.

All right, so it might be difficult to keep your eyes on the camera in this clip. But try anyway.

The "Person of the Year"

Drudge has a good nose for news. He's also got a very good knack for putting two stories back-to-back and letting one shoot the other to pieces.

The latest example:

One: Time's Person of the Year: 'The Protester'

And two: Occupy Portland Mom Places 4-Year-Old Daughter On Train Tracks During Protest To Shut Down Port of Portland.

Here's video of one of Time Magazine's People of the Year. No word on how her kid's doing.

Video: Shit Girls Say

Pretty much spot on the money. Juliette Lewis makes a cameo.

Have A Nice Flight

Unfortunately, you'll have to crank this one to hear what the ride operator's saying, but let me help you out. He says things like, "The harness is not safe right now." And, "The harness is releasing." Then.....

If you don't have time for all that, just fast forward to 1:30 for the money.


Slingshot Customer Lied To - Watch MoreFunny Videos

Shopping Cart Fail

I have absolutely no idea what the guys in this clip were trying to accomplish. But I'm sure glad they tried it.

The Anti-Violence Lie

Anti-bully fever is in the air lately.

The Toronto Star has the latest:

Councillor Doug Ford’s office has suggested Toronto schools look into a community service program backed by the violent mixed martial arts league, Ultimate Fighting Championship.

In an email obtained by the Star, Ford’s constituency assistant, Anna Vescio, asked a Toronto District School Board trustee to circulate a brochure touting an initiative called UFC Community Works.

According to the brochure, the program promotes “the development of discipline, respect, teamwork, honesty, time management and physical fitness” through mixed martial arts training and meetings with UFC fighters.

UFC has become notorious for its brutal, bloody, no-holds barred fighting. Mixed martial arts events were banned in Ontario until this year.

The spin later on in the piece is that schools are all about anti-violence, and mixed martial arts is a bad thing for kids to emulate. For Ford's part, he later said that he doesn't want fighting taught in schools. He wants to use the lecture services of the Community Works program to talk to kids.

As the kids might say: "Whatevs."

Ford isn't going to win on this one, now that it's out of the bag. People will see "UFC" written beside "schoolchildren" in the headlines, and that will be the end of the discussion.

I don't enjoy watching UFC fights, but I don't like hypocrisy, either. The most interesting line in the Toronto Star's story is this: "Mixed martial arts events were banned in Ontario until this year."

Yes, they were. And now they're not. Now, the province of Ontario and the city of Toronto can make hay off people beating the living crap out of each other. From licensing requirements, to taxes on overpriced cups of beer, the message from the province is simple: fighting is business, and business is good. To keep the business alive, we need people to smash each other's faces in. How about your children, Mrs. Smith?

It is only logical to conclude - as we do with hockey and football - that mixed martial arts are something that the province's children should admire. The banal sports radio hosts that talk endlessly about concussions in hockey would be the first ones to say that youth hockey is a great idea. Football damages more knees, ribs, and brains every year than mixed martial arts could ever hope to achieve, but we'll throw Johnny on the field the second a coach says, "He's got a nice arm."

The people that earnestly say that we shouldn't lie to children are likely the same people who lie when they teach kids that our society won't condone violence. The kids should think you're nuts. Violence is bad? We just made it legal to step into a ring, kick a man in the head, knock him to the ground, drop a knee into his gut, and then choke him until a) he begs for mercy, or b) the ref stops the choke hold before it kills him.

At Rogers Centre in Toronto on April 30, 2011, a total of 55,724 people paid big money to see just that. It was a record for a UFC event. And we're going to pretend that the province of Ontario has a philosophy of "anti-violence?"

Don't blame the fighter for the bloody mess you find on the floor of the octagon. He gets paid a decent buck to put that blood there, and he's got the province's blessing to do it. It shouldn't surprise you in the least if you find your son - or daughter - in there a few years down the road.

(Photo: Rogers Centre UFC April, 2011. Sportsnet.ca.)

Boozed it. Lost it.

Charlotte Observor: A Hickory man is waiting to hear the list of charges he’ll face after slamming into a DWI mobile comand center Sunday morning.

The incident happened on US 321 at the intersection of 9th street around 2:45am. Law enforcement were conducting a DWI checkpoint when a 1989 red Camaro rammed into the back of the "Booze it and Lose it" mobile unit...Authorities believe Shane had consumed alcohol prior to the crash. Charges are pending in the case."

You must be wasted if you don't see the massive Winnebago camper with the words DWI Checkpoint written on it in letters two feet high.

Side note: I'm not sure if anything says "trash" more than a 1989 Camaro rear ending an RV at 2:45am in North Carolina, but let me know.

Photo: Charlotte Observer.

The Bully Ball Busted

CBS Boston: "Lynch described a phone call she received from the school explaining that the case will be treated like sexual harassment, due to what it considers inappropriate touching.

“‘Your son kicked a little boy in the testicles. We call that sexual harassment,’” Lynch said the school told her.

Only in the bizarro world of our current planet Earth could kicking someone in the balls be called "sexual harassment."

In this case, Ms. Lynch says a boy was choking her 7-year-old son and wanted to steal his gloves. Her son responded exactly as he should have: by squaring the guy. The school reacted to that by saying there would be an investigation for sexual harassment because it involved "inappropriate touching."

Cool. Now I understand: when I inappropriately bumped into that guy on the subway, I wasn't trying to get off the subway, I was committing sexual harassment.

I wonder where we get these educators today? At Penn State, a guy literally can't get arrested for raping kids in the shower. In Boston, a kid's up on a sex rap for defending himself. In Vancouver, people are singing the blues and saying "down with bullies" because yet another poor teen killed themselves after being bullied into depression.

Note to schools: your anti-bully campaigns won't do nearly as much good as a lesson from the 7-year-old who aimed for the goal posts with his groin punt. Don't punish him. Let him teach the anti-bullying class.

Who would you trust these days: 7-year-olds who follow their instincts of self preservation, or school administrations that can't protect kids and in fact give the kid hell for protecting himself?

Arab Spring to Simmering Summer

Not great:

Judges overseeing the vote count in Egypt's parliamentary elections say Islamist parties have won a majority of the contested seats in the first round. The judges spoke on condition of anonymity because official results are expected to be released later Thursday.

Less than good:

Continued success by Islamists will allow them to give Cairo's government and constitution a decidedly Islamist character. It could also lead Cairo to shift away from the West towards the Iranian axis.

Bad:

“When I asked Shams el-Din, the Brotherhood neurologist, whether he believed that homosexuals should be stoned, he said, “Yes.” “We think that the laws should conform with what has been put forward by the revelation, using parliamentary means.”'

I was talking to an Egyptian, who said that the Muslim Brotherhood will never have control of Egypt, because the military won't give them the run of the country. I said, "What if the military simply becomes the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood? The MB gives them popular support in exchange for the military being a bodyguard. 'Keep your guns, just kick the asses of people we tell you to.'"

My friend blinked and said, "Don't even think that."

My friend didn't say it couldn't happen.

Photo: CNN

Fall Hard, Fall Fast

In hindsight, they should have just given him a gold watch.

From the Probably Not What They Had In Mind file:

ABC News: Patrick Sullivan was such a popular sheriff that Arapahoe County renamed the jail after him when he retired. Sullivan, arrested on drug charges this week, is now an inmate in the Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. Detention Facility.

Apparently, he was an upright guy and everybody liked him. According to ABC, he served as sheriff for close to twenty years, was named national deputy of the year in 2001, retired, had a jail named after him, and became director of safety and security for a school board. Then he allegedly tried to swap meth with a man in exchange for sex.

And that's that.

Cutting the Christmas List Down to Size

"You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

Or rather, you would, if it weren't for the European credit crisis, high US unemployment and other assorted economic heebie jeebies. Fact is, you can't have everything, including that air rifle.

The Daily Mail:

The largest Santa school in the U.S. has been advising its students on how to lower children's expectations in the economic downturn. When confronted with a huge list of 'I wants', Santas are being told to tell them that they can't have everything. They should also take a look at the children's parents and 'size them up' before promising them something that their mother and father can't afford.

My knee jerk reaction is to say that Santa Claus shouldn't be a killjoy. But then, I have a feeling if I was down on my luck and my kid was wearing crummy old shoes, I'd appreciate if Santa Claus took this in and downplayed the latest iPod, too.

By the way: they have Santa schools? Since when?

Learn a Trade

The road to salvation?

Here is a decent piece from the Wall Street Journal, which talks about how many blue collar job there are out there, and how few people there are to fill them.

It dovetails nicely with a piece I saw in the New York Times a while back, about law schools that keep pumping out more and more lawyers every year, without a thought to quality or job availabilty. And why shouldn't they? As the piece shows, running a law school means big bucks.

Law school has an image that high school grads and their mothers dig. Plumbing apprenticeships do not. Hence, a lot of lawyers and not so many plumbers. This is why I have a bone to pick with the headline editor of the WSJ piece. The headline says Help Wanted: In Unexpected Twist, Some Skilled Jobs Go Begging.

An unexpected twist? Since when? Society's been telling kids for decades that the only way to get ahead in life is to graduate from university. The university grads - unemployed or otherwise - shouldn't be surprised now that their toilet's stuck and their call goes straight to voicemail.

"Learn a trade." It was advice I heard a lot when I was younger. If things didn't work out, "Learn a trade." As it happens, I didn't go to school for a trade, but it was good advice back then, and it still is now.

As a note to the kids who have been watching too much TV, a tradesperson is still cool at parties. A carpenter and a surgeon deserve equal respect in my books, and as far as I can tell, they both get that respect. If it'll make you feel better, just say you're a "contractor." The doctors and lawyers immediately nod and say, "Wow, a contractor," and start thinking about renovations.

Grey Cup, Grey Hair, Black Eyes

Two CFL players finally did something worth watching.

Unfortunately, they're both over 70 years old.

Yahoo! Sports: The action starts almost immediately when Mosca and Kapp are both invited up on stage. Kapp holds a flower out towards Mosca, Mosca responds "Stick it up your a##," to cheers, Kapp then does stick the flower right into Mosca's face (as claimed in Mosca's version of events), then Mosca hits him with a handheld mike. Mosca then delivers the titular cane to the face a couple of times, and hard, while Kapp returns fire with a bull rush and a couple of punches and knocks Mosca through the curtain.

Talk about bearing a grudge. Apparently they've hated each other since a Grey Cup in 1963.

Unfortunately, the Yahoo! guy decides to get sappy: Someone could have been badly hurt here, and given these guys' ages, the danger of serious injury is even higher. It's also not the best advertisement for the CFL to have two of its legendary alumni engage in an all-out brawl like this.

Please. Like the CFL is going to get any better publicity than two old dudes throwing a fight made for YouTube.

Black Friday

Economics professors that ignore economic truths crack me up. Actually, they usually crack me no matter what their take on the economy, if only because they turn out to be dead wrong so often. Whenever the economy takes a powder, there's lots of economics guys telling us how to fix the problem. Nobody ever seems to ask, "Hey, genius, why didn't you see this coming in the first place?"

Anyway, take Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell. He wrote a piece in the New York Times that is full of all kinds of baloney (he also wrote a book that has the words "Common Good" in the title, so obviously he knows how to live your life better than you do; which is to say, he's full of it).

These people have apparently not read Robert Frank.

His latest piece is about Black Friday, the day when Americans race out to buy discount goods and sometimes beat each other up or pepper spray each other over $2 waffle irons. Frank doesn't like this. He thinks it's bad. He thinks you should be in bed at a reasonable time on Thanksgiving Eve, and that you shouldn't be out shopping too early in the morning. Frank, like many of his Ivy League ilk, thinks you need some guidance in the game of life. In this case, his way to get you out of the stores and back with your mother-in-law is to...tax Black Friday.

Let's just tiptoe through the tulips of Robert Frank's nonsense. It is an essay that reeks of arrogance:

In recent years, large retail chains have been competing to be the first to open their doors on Black Friday. The race is driven by the theory that stores with the earliest start time capture the most buyers and make the most sales. [It takes a univeristy professor to figure this out?] For many years, stores opened at a reasonable hour [which hour is reasonable?]. Then, some started opening at 5 a.m. [Oops. I guess 5 a.m. is unreasonable], prompting complaints from employees [name three of them] about having to go to sleep early on Thanksgiving and miss out on time with their families.

He has to be kidding. I find it hard to believe that Robert Frank stays up at night worrying about people that have to work the night shift. Besides, if it's a case of missing out on time with families, why doesn't Frank worry about gas station attendants, steel workers, cops, nurses, firefighters, late night bartenders, and 7-11 clerks? My guess is because those jobs don't have an anniversary date in the headlines, and they don't have the icky "consumerism" vibe that guys like Frank dislike so much.

Though I smell a rat when it comes to Frank's family-bleeding-heart-syndrome nonsense, I'll give him another crack at it:

Last year Toys “R” Us opened at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving. This year, Wal-Mart will do the same. The costs to store owners and their employees and families are enormous: millions must now spend time away from home on the one occasion that all Americans, regardless of religion or cultural background, share as a family holiday.

What is it about university professors that make them think they know how to run a store better than a store manager, or work the night shift better than a working father of three? And why does Frank feel that he knows how you should spend your Thanksgiving? Want to collect some overtime? Want to surf Facebook? Want to do handstands on the corner of 5th and Main? Want to play handball with a piece of cement? As long as you're not breaking the law or writing crappy stuff for the New York Times, I don't care, and neither should Frank.

"The cost to store owners and the employees and families are enormous." Frank seems to forget that nobody is dragging these people into the store and forcing them to work under the whip. What these people are doing is called working. They have what is called a job. It gives them this thing called money, which they can use to put food on the tables of the families that Robert Frank is so worried about.

Note to the arrogant writer: these people aren't working at Wal-Mart and Target because they want to give you something to write about. They work there to make a living. If it wasn't worth it, they wouldn't do it, and neither would the stores. This is called "economics," Mr. Economics Professor.

As every mature adult realizes [take that, you damn immature conservatives!], we have to tax something, and the revenue from my 6-6-6 plan [his plan - besides having a horrible number for the marketing people to deal with - is to tax everything sold on Thanksgiving Thurs/Fri between 6pm and 6am at 6%] would make it possible to reduce taxes on other activities that are actually useful [name just three activities you would reduce taxes on, Bobby; I beg you]. Best of all, it would encourage Americans to spend Thanksgiving night where they really want to — in bed.


The arrogance is astounding. "Other activities that are actually useful...Encourage Americans to spend Thanksgiving where they really want to..." How does this guy know what people want? Robert Frank, just because you don't think cheap t-shirts and discount toys for the kids aren't useful, doesn't mean the single mom working on minimum wage won't appreciate the sales.

I'm getting tired of the people that are so worried about the poor that they decide to hammer the poor for being poor. Who does the man think is shopping at Wal-Mart and Target at 5am? Rockefeller? Black Friday is a time of year that a hurting family can grab some stuff on the cheap, while the employees can pick up some extra hours and overtime (and there's my arrogance; does it have to be poor people shopping at 5am? No. It could be anybody. And it's their business, not mine - pun intended).

If it's the odd Black Friday violence you're worried about, sure, the odd idiot might throw a punch here and there. That's life in large crowds. It draws headlines and makes people like Frank wet their pants, but it's few and far between. It's hardly a good enough reason to hose the guy who's looking for a cheap leaf blower.

When Robert Frank sits down at his computer on Sunday to tell people yet again how to live their own lives, I hope there's thousands of football fans saying what a great deal they got on their 50-inch TV. It should at least please Frank that they're spending time at home.

Update:

From CNN: Preliminary reports for Black Friday indicate that retailers may have seen their strongest sales ever during the all-important kick-off to the holiday shopping season.

Retail sales on Black Friday climbed 6.6% this year to an estimated $11.4 billion.

I don't know how this squares with Frank's funny theory that everyone in the country wants to stay home on Thanksgiving, but maybe he'll explain at a later date.
Photo: Michael Nagle/Getty Images