The United States is in a world of hurt.
Just take a look at the headlines: Record deficit piled on top of record deficit. piled on the back of taxpayers – the ancients and those future ones still learning to pull up their diapers.
We’re fighting two wars we can’t win; chances are there’s an army general or three looking at future war sites in case there’s ever a scenario in which we can extricate ourselves from Afghanistan and Iraq.
God knows this country can’t properly function without a good war or two to keep our minds off other problems.
Shoot, about that next war: Iran is handy and that Amenijarhead needs a good butt-stomping!
We bail out banks that are too big to fail and carmakers who give too much money to elected officials to be allowed to go belly-up. The home of free enterprise has evolved into the home of the free lunch money.
After 9/11 we added a bloated level of bureaucracy that checks our shoes for bombs and thinks its part of their job to frisk a little old lady named Gladys because a similar name appeared on some risk-list somehow.
Wear a doctor’s ordered back brace and try and go through airport security and you risk a real chance of a two-saddle-wide security guard playing hide-the-finger in orifices high and low.
We elect mealy-mouthed word-weasels with the backbone of melted Jello to represent us in Congress and sit back and adore their protestations about anything in which we think we don’t believe but are not sure because we don’t listen because we might miss the newest episode of the stupid, pouty Kardashians or Survivors in Watts if we stopped long enough to have a single, uncommercialzed thought.
Look in the mirror. That’s what a lemming looks like. If you vote to re-elect a single politician – ever -- that contributed to the Hellmess in which this country finds itself, you deserve what you get.
If you believe a single word that comes out of the mouth of any politician already in office and trying to stay in office, shame on you. If you believe a single word that comes out of the mouth of any politician trying to replace an incumbent politician, shame on you again.
Politicians, with few exceptions, will do whatever it takes to get elected and stay elected.
Wait up. Vote them all out and start over. That, and only that, will send a message that we are tried of monkey business as usual.
This announcement didn’t cost you a durn thing…except the time to read it.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Gummit is like a road kill possum
It’s not because the income tax deadline is approaching that I say this:
The federal gummit is one stupid road kill possum.
Gummit, by the very nature of the beast, is not an effective organization; it is like a mama cat with eight teats and 12 kittens. Good freakin’ luck doing what it is you need to do.
The gummit tax code is a gazillion-page document that was written by wonks and wordjerks in a language somewhere between Jingoism and Malaprops. The Internal Revenue Service rulebook is bigger than that of New York City has as many foreign elements in it. The U.S. Postal Service can’t figure out how to make a profit.
Not only that, but gummit members of Congress exempt themselves from laws they don’t like (participation in Social Security, for example) and pass out tax dollars like it belongs to them.
And don’t get me started on the Census Bureau!
I sorta understand why it’s important to know statistical thingies like number of people in a household. But when the bureaucrats start thinking it’s important to know how much money a citizen makes or how many bathrooms are in a residence or how many mushroom and spinach pizzas a family consumes in a year, it’s time to draw the line.
If you are alive, you have already received information about the upcoming census. You’ve seen ads on TV or in a newspaper or have received a warning in the mail.
This is where I go sidewonkers with the IRS: I received an official mailed notification from the Census Bureau that I would soon be receiving a census form; the form came five days later. Two days after that I received a note from the Census Bureau to remind me that I was supposed to have already received a form and urged me to mail it back.
The form I had received was the short form and is absolutely no fun at all. I filled it in for the family and got it in the mail the same day I received it. Whoa! What a thrill.
What I really wanted to receive was the long form, which I understand, they don’t send out anymore. That is a certified downer.
I (or it could have been a close friend) received the long form in 2000. According to the information I (or a close friend) sent back, my house had six bathrooms and 11 exits to the home’s exterior.
To make sure the Census Bureau didn’t make a mistake and leave me off the receive-long-form list, I went to the gummit website: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/
I thought I wanted to peruse the site in English, but just to be sure, I clicked on the “select a language” icon. It was tough deciding between plain on American English and Shqip/Armenian, Cebuano, Dinka, Haitian Creole, Gujarati, llocano, Tamil or Urdu.
Being an adventurous soul, I clicked Dinka. Couldn’t read a single word. A couple of words looked like in order to pronounce them you had to make a popping noise by sticking your tongue in one nostril and flipping it downward.
I’m not ridiculing the census in general, because I understand the need for having factual data in regard to doling out federal dollars.
What I am ridiculing is the eighth-grade way the gummit attempts to do a post-graduate exercise.
For example, why are the forms not available online? The gummit has an answer, for sure, but whatever it is, it’s not a good one. Look at the money an online survey would save; look at the savings in manpower alone.
It’s a mess, as is most things mandated by the gummit of the people, by the people and for the people.
Wonder what the Census Bureau will do when they get a form mailed back … in Dinka?
Oh, forgot, it’s the gummit. They probably have a legion of Dinkaites waiting to translate the durn thing.
After all, it’s not their money they’re spending.
The federal gummit is one stupid road kill possum.
Gummit, by the very nature of the beast, is not an effective organization; it is like a mama cat with eight teats and 12 kittens. Good freakin’ luck doing what it is you need to do.
The gummit tax code is a gazillion-page document that was written by wonks and wordjerks in a language somewhere between Jingoism and Malaprops. The Internal Revenue Service rulebook is bigger than that of New York City has as many foreign elements in it. The U.S. Postal Service can’t figure out how to make a profit.
Not only that, but gummit members of Congress exempt themselves from laws they don’t like (participation in Social Security, for example) and pass out tax dollars like it belongs to them.
And don’t get me started on the Census Bureau!
I sorta understand why it’s important to know statistical thingies like number of people in a household. But when the bureaucrats start thinking it’s important to know how much money a citizen makes or how many bathrooms are in a residence or how many mushroom and spinach pizzas a family consumes in a year, it’s time to draw the line.
If you are alive, you have already received information about the upcoming census. You’ve seen ads on TV or in a newspaper or have received a warning in the mail.
This is where I go sidewonkers with the IRS: I received an official mailed notification from the Census Bureau that I would soon be receiving a census form; the form came five days later. Two days after that I received a note from the Census Bureau to remind me that I was supposed to have already received a form and urged me to mail it back.
The form I had received was the short form and is absolutely no fun at all. I filled it in for the family and got it in the mail the same day I received it. Whoa! What a thrill.
What I really wanted to receive was the long form, which I understand, they don’t send out anymore. That is a certified downer.
I (or it could have been a close friend) received the long form in 2000. According to the information I (or a close friend) sent back, my house had six bathrooms and 11 exits to the home’s exterior.
To make sure the Census Bureau didn’t make a mistake and leave me off the receive-long-form list, I went to the gummit website: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/
I thought I wanted to peruse the site in English, but just to be sure, I clicked on the “select a language” icon. It was tough deciding between plain on American English and Shqip/Armenian, Cebuano, Dinka, Haitian Creole, Gujarati, llocano, Tamil or Urdu.
Being an adventurous soul, I clicked Dinka. Couldn’t read a single word. A couple of words looked like in order to pronounce them you had to make a popping noise by sticking your tongue in one nostril and flipping it downward.
I’m not ridiculing the census in general, because I understand the need for having factual data in regard to doling out federal dollars.
What I am ridiculing is the eighth-grade way the gummit attempts to do a post-graduate exercise.
For example, why are the forms not available online? The gummit has an answer, for sure, but whatever it is, it’s not a good one. Look at the money an online survey would save; look at the savings in manpower alone.
It’s a mess, as is most things mandated by the gummit of the people, by the people and for the people.
Wonder what the Census Bureau will do when they get a form mailed back … in Dinka?
Oh, forgot, it’s the gummit. They probably have a legion of Dinkaites waiting to translate the durn thing.
After all, it’s not their money they’re spending.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Parent. Child.
The love a parent has for a child is, sometimes, mirrored by the love a child, all grown up now, has for the parent.
I am fortunate to have four children, all of whom love me in their own special way. I tried hard – and sometimes succeeded – in letting them all know that a father’s love should be freely given and, above all, never ending.
It is said that a person’s legacy can best be defined by his or her children. That’s too simple, really. Children, although imprints in many respects of past generations, should always be thought of as individuals, not automaton clones of their parents.
Honestly, I have not always been the best father I could possibly be. I was first a father at 22, and was too immature to fully understand the importance of parenting. A strong, compulsive work ethic drove me as a young man to strive to be the best at my chosen profession, to the detriment to ever being a candidate for a Father of the Year award.
Despite the protestations of both older children, who always have positive things to say about those growing-up years (for all of us), I know I could have been less selfish and provided a more positive fatherly image that what I did. I can use the excuse of trying to make my mark in the world of community journalism as a reason for my lackadaisical attitude toward parenting, but it’s a flim-flam, self-serving excuse, at best.
I am blessed that 20 years later, two bright, wonderful children allowed me to become their father by choice and by law. Being a blended family is never easy; minor obstacles can become insurmountable emotional mountains.
How am I so blessed? Within the last 24 hours all four children, in telephone calls and text messages, have said the world’s most powerful words to me: Love you!
They don’t know how that simple expression of affection touches my heart and brings tears to my eyes. Or, maybe they do. They are all bright beyond belief; they’re perceptive and honest and don’t profess love without meaning it with all their heart.
I know I am not alone in having children that love me unconditionally and are not afraid of showing it.
Right now, in some niche of this big, old world, there is a child who is making sure his or her parent know the true meaning of love; that child is giving unconditional love to a parent that taught them that trait throughout their lives.
Like me, that parent is blessed. And, like me, that parent is appreciative of being loved by those we love.
I am fortunate to have four children, all of whom love me in their own special way. I tried hard – and sometimes succeeded – in letting them all know that a father’s love should be freely given and, above all, never ending.
It is said that a person’s legacy can best be defined by his or her children. That’s too simple, really. Children, although imprints in many respects of past generations, should always be thought of as individuals, not automaton clones of their parents.
Honestly, I have not always been the best father I could possibly be. I was first a father at 22, and was too immature to fully understand the importance of parenting. A strong, compulsive work ethic drove me as a young man to strive to be the best at my chosen profession, to the detriment to ever being a candidate for a Father of the Year award.
Despite the protestations of both older children, who always have positive things to say about those growing-up years (for all of us), I know I could have been less selfish and provided a more positive fatherly image that what I did. I can use the excuse of trying to make my mark in the world of community journalism as a reason for my lackadaisical attitude toward parenting, but it’s a flim-flam, self-serving excuse, at best.
I am blessed that 20 years later, two bright, wonderful children allowed me to become their father by choice and by law. Being a blended family is never easy; minor obstacles can become insurmountable emotional mountains.
How am I so blessed? Within the last 24 hours all four children, in telephone calls and text messages, have said the world’s most powerful words to me: Love you!
They don’t know how that simple expression of affection touches my heart and brings tears to my eyes. Or, maybe they do. They are all bright beyond belief; they’re perceptive and honest and don’t profess love without meaning it with all their heart.
I know I am not alone in having children that love me unconditionally and are not afraid of showing it.
Right now, in some niche of this big, old world, there is a child who is making sure his or her parent know the true meaning of love; that child is giving unconditional love to a parent that taught them that trait throughout their lives.
Like me, that parent is blessed. And, like me, that parent is appreciative of being loved by those we love.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Searching for literary immortality
Every person, on some level, wants to leave something behind that will be memorable. For most, it is our children, and at that, with four memorable children, I am fortunate indeed.
But I seek more ... a catch-phrase that will catch the attention of future generations and become part of the human literary lexicon. Thoughts pop into my head and are rejected like chaff from a thrasher machine. But some stick and, at least for a time, seem to be possible contenders.
It's not that men are from Mars or that women are from Venus, it's just that men are stupid.
Guilt is like an execution by guillotine ... but with guilt the victim pulls the lever that releases the blade.
A step toward a new beginning should not be taken in clown shoes.
I will not eat anything that contains additives.
(Quote from a man who died last week after choking on a handful of rocks.)
But I seek more ... a catch-phrase that will catch the attention of future generations and become part of the human literary lexicon. Thoughts pop into my head and are rejected like chaff from a thrasher machine. But some stick and, at least for a time, seem to be possible contenders.
It's not that men are from Mars or that women are from Venus, it's just that men are stupid.
Guilt is like an execution by guillotine ... but with guilt the victim pulls the lever that releases the blade.
A step toward a new beginning should not be taken in clown shoes.
I will not eat anything that contains additives.
(Quote from a man who died last week after choking on a handful of rocks.)
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
How screwy is this world?
Take a minute. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
Open your eyes and scream at the top your lungs: Stop the insanity!
Item 1: The United States is going to build a new embassy in London. There has been no statement on what was wrong with the old embassy, just that we're building a new one.
The location for the embassy will be outside of Central London, and will have humongous trees, and ponds and natural barricades to keep terrorists out. Being it's England, there'll probably be peacocks roaming the grounds, along with black and white swans, and probably a small herd of those smallish animals the English like to call forest deer.
The official reason for why this country is building a new embassy is typical: "Just because." That's not the official reason given, but the accurate one.
The new building will cost $1 billion.
Good gosh, Maudie!
This country is drowning in red ink and we're spending $1,000,000,000 on a building in London? What is wrong with our leaders? What is wrong with us for electing the same yahoos over and over again?
Item 2: As a personal policy, every American can change this country overnight by going to the polls in November and refusing to vote for a single incumbent. Make a stand. If we don't do it now, we have no right to gripe and moan in the future.
Item 3: The military's don't ask, don't tell policy on gay soldiers is asinine, discriminatory and violates federal law. Personal opinions on the issue are the issue; the law is.
Army Chief of Staff George Casey believes that repealing the current shhhhhh policy could do harm to the military. He's paid to say that and he does a good job at parroting the military position for the past 200 years.
But Casey is missing a point: Gays have always served in the military; some have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. For decades, blacks were not allowed to serve in white units; women were not allowed to serve at all, and still today are "prohibited" from front line duty. Those rules did not keep these brave soldiers for dying for their country.
Discrimination in some form has always been a trademark of the military and it's current internal stance on gay soldiers is just wrong-headed.
Open your eyes and scream at the top your lungs: Stop the insanity!
Item 1: The United States is going to build a new embassy in London. There has been no statement on what was wrong with the old embassy, just that we're building a new one.
The location for the embassy will be outside of Central London, and will have humongous trees, and ponds and natural barricades to keep terrorists out. Being it's England, there'll probably be peacocks roaming the grounds, along with black and white swans, and probably a small herd of those smallish animals the English like to call forest deer.
The official reason for why this country is building a new embassy is typical: "Just because." That's not the official reason given, but the accurate one.
The new building will cost $1 billion.
Good gosh, Maudie!
This country is drowning in red ink and we're spending $1,000,000,000 on a building in London? What is wrong with our leaders? What is wrong with us for electing the same yahoos over and over again?
Item 2: As a personal policy, every American can change this country overnight by going to the polls in November and refusing to vote for a single incumbent. Make a stand. If we don't do it now, we have no right to gripe and moan in the future.
Item 3: The military's don't ask, don't tell policy on gay soldiers is asinine, discriminatory and violates federal law. Personal opinions on the issue are the issue; the law is.
Army Chief of Staff George Casey believes that repealing the current shhhhhh policy could do harm to the military. He's paid to say that and he does a good job at parroting the military position for the past 200 years.
But Casey is missing a point: Gays have always served in the military; some have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. For decades, blacks were not allowed to serve in white units; women were not allowed to serve at all, and still today are "prohibited" from front line duty. Those rules did not keep these brave soldiers for dying for their country.
Discrimination in some form has always been a trademark of the military and it's current internal stance on gay soldiers is just wrong-headed.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Circumference of Me
Hiccups are no big deal
It’s important for managers -- in business and in life -- to learn what mistakes are important and what are merely hiccups in life.
A hiccup is here and gone. It is not a permanent condition. A single hiccup occurrence leaves no permanent damage and few people remember you ever had it.
A business hiccup is . . .
An email sent without its intended attachment.
A typographical error in a report.
Writing down the wrong time for a meeting.
Missing a minor deadline.
Life hiccups include:
Forgetting the name of the restaurant where you are meeting your significant other.
Forgetting something on the grocery list.
Men: Forgetting to put down the toilet seat ... or worse, not putting it up in the first place.
Women: Griping at men for not putting up or down the toilet seat.
There is a major chasm between a hiccup and a certified disaster.
It is a frightful part of human nature that some people cannot differentiate between the a hiccup and a disaster. A temporarily misplaced report arouses the same reactions in some people as does a lost account.
For active, multi-tasking managers in business and in life, hiccups are like mosquitoes in swampy areas, they are going to pop up no matter what you do. Hiccups, while aggravating, don’t ever make or break careers. That is reserved for the reactions of those who do the hiccupping or evaluate their effect on the business.
Swallow the hiccup by acknowledging it as a mistake, apologize if necessary, and get on to more important issues.
There will be bumps long life's path. A bump is a bump. Don’t make it bigger than it is and don’t allow it to ruin the journey.
Circumference of Me is a book in progress by Steve Burnett of New York City and George Smith of Cabot, Arkansas.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Where have all the heroes gone?
The United States is in a world of hurt.
Just take a look at the headlines: Record deficit piled on top of record deficit. piled on the back of taxpayers – the ancients and those future ones still learning to pull up their diapers.
We’re fighting two wars we can’t win; chances are there’s an army general or three looking at future war sites in case there’s ever a scenario in which we can extricate ourselves from Afghanistan and Iraq.
God knows this country can’t properly function without a good war or two to keep our minds off other problems.
Shoot, about that next war: Iran is handy and that Amenijarhead needs a good butt-stomping!
We bail out banks that are too big to fail and carmakers who give too much money to elected officials to be allowed to go belly-up. The home of free enterprise has evolved into the home of the free lunch money.
After 9/11 we added a bloated level of bureaucracy that checks our shoes for bombs and thinks its part of their job to frisk a little old lady named Gladys because a similar name appeared on some risk-list somehow.
Wear a doctor’s ordered back brace and try and go through airport security and you risk a real chance of a two-saddle-wide security guard playing hide-the-finger in orifices high and low.
We elect mealy-mouthed word-weasels with the backbone of melted Jello to represent us in Congress and sit back and adore their protestations about anything in which we think we don’t believe but are not sure because we don’t listen because we might miss the newest episode of the stupid, pouty Kardashians or Survivors in Watts if we stopped long enough to have a single, uncommercialzed thought.
Look in the mirror. That’s what a lemming looks like. If you vote to re-elect a single politician – ever -- that contributed to the Hellmess in which this country finds itself, you deserve what you get.
If you believe a single word that comes out of the mouth of any politician already in office and trying to stay in office, shame on you. If you believe a single word that comes out of the mouth of any politician trying to replace an incumbent politician, shame on you again.
Politicians, with few exceptions, will do whatever it takes to get elected and stay elected.
Wait up. Vote them all out and start over. That, and only that, will send a message that we are tried of monkey business as usual.
This announcement didn’t cost you a durn thing…except the time to read it.
Just take a look at the headlines: Record deficit piled on top of record deficit. piled on the back of taxpayers – the ancients and those future ones still learning to pull up their diapers.
We’re fighting two wars we can’t win; chances are there’s an army general or three looking at future war sites in case there’s ever a scenario in which we can extricate ourselves from Afghanistan and Iraq.
God knows this country can’t properly function without a good war or two to keep our minds off other problems.
Shoot, about that next war: Iran is handy and that Amenijarhead needs a good butt-stomping!
We bail out banks that are too big to fail and carmakers who give too much money to elected officials to be allowed to go belly-up. The home of free enterprise has evolved into the home of the free lunch money.
After 9/11 we added a bloated level of bureaucracy that checks our shoes for bombs and thinks its part of their job to frisk a little old lady named Gladys because a similar name appeared on some risk-list somehow.
Wear a doctor’s ordered back brace and try and go through airport security and you risk a real chance of a two-saddle-wide security guard playing hide-the-finger in orifices high and low.
We elect mealy-mouthed word-weasels with the backbone of melted Jello to represent us in Congress and sit back and adore their protestations about anything in which we think we don’t believe but are not sure because we don’t listen because we might miss the newest episode of the stupid, pouty Kardashians or Survivors in Watts if we stopped long enough to have a single, uncommercialzed thought.
Look in the mirror. That’s what a lemming looks like. If you vote to re-elect a single politician – ever -- that contributed to the Hellmess in which this country finds itself, you deserve what you get.
If you believe a single word that comes out of the mouth of any politician already in office and trying to stay in office, shame on you. If you believe a single word that comes out of the mouth of any politician trying to replace an incumbent politician, shame on you again.
Politicians, with few exceptions, will do whatever it takes to get elected and stay elected.
Wait up. Vote them all out and start over. That, and only that, will send a message that we are tried of monkey business as usual.
This announcement didn’t cost you a durn thing…except the time to read it.
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