BIG BROTHER, OR BIG MOMMA?

When Spike told me that New York City was thinking about paying kids to show up for class, I thought he’d finally lost his mind. And when Spike told me that the Big Apple was going to reward poor folks for not getting fired, I packed Spike’s suitcase drove him to the farm.

Come to find out, he was right.

Students could receive as much as $500.00 per year if they do well on tests, and should they graduate, they will get $400.00 along with a diploma. Students who get a library card will receive $50.00

Poor people can make an extra $150.00 for keeping a full time job, and $200.00 for going to the dentist.

When I was a kid, back when parents raised their children and not the Government, we had incentive programs. If you received poor grades you were given an increase in study time. If you didn’t graduate, you were given a low paying job. If you filled out a library card, you were given a book.

Grown-ups had incentives too. If they were fired they got bills they could not pay, and if they didn’t get regular dental checkups, they got cavities.

Way I figure it; Spike can have this new world. I’m packing my suitcase and heading for the farm.

I CAN’T AFFORD NOT TO GO TO JAIL

I read that it cost taxpayers $1,000 a day to keep Paris Hilton in prison. But what amazes me is that taxpayers pay $100.00 a day to care for ordinary inmates.

I figure my expenses come to $25.00 a day, and that includes what I spend on Spaz. I don’t live high on the hog, but there is ham in my frig and I have cable, and I’m on the internet. I stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I also spend $3.00 a day on gas, an expense I’m sure the inmate need not incur.

So, what the hell does an inmate need? A cell. Three meals a day. Toiletries. I mean, how much can an orange jumpsuit cost?

WHEN CRIME PAYS

This morning I called the County prison and asked if they were overcrowded. The nice woman on the other line asked if I was with the press. I told her no, that I was just a concerned citizen. She hesitated at first, but then told me they were running at 85% capacity. I thanked her and hung up.

Damn.

I brushed my teeth and ran a comb through what’s left of my hair. I was going to shave, but I didn’t feel like looking at my mug in the mirror, so I doused it with cold water and left it at that. Blood-shot eyes, errant ear and nose hairs, and creased, leathery flesh are best looked at later in the day.

I checked my emails, but it was just another redneck vacation. Nothing but spam and phishing. I googled myself. No surprises there either. I was a ghost thumbing a ride on the information highway. Nothing solid. No bios. No links. No info.

I logged onto my bank account. If I can put together another ten bucks I can cover bank fees for the month.

No money.

No looks.

No celebrity.

I decided to call off the heist. Crime doesn’t pay for guys like me.

PARIS: FROM THE HILTON TO THE BIG HOUSE

Half the world believes Paris Hilton should be in prison. The other half is blonde. And despite the petitions, and calls for California Governor Schwarzenegger to intercede, Paris is now behind bars. For the next three weeks, news coverage of the war in Iraq, the up-coming presidential race, and global warming will take a back seat to the Hilton hellion. Tomorrows news reports will likely contain the following:

Last night, Paris Hilton accidentally walked through her cell bars while sleepwalking. She was captured a short time later when a guard overheard her say, “solitary confinement is hot.”

Nicole Richie, long time gal-pal, sent Paris a chocolate cake. A file was inside the cake. Hilton did her nails.

Paris announces release of her new perfume, “Felony”.

When told she would get “three hots and a cot“, Paris requested Leonardo DiCaprio, Nick Lachey, and Brad Pitt.

O.J. Simpson must be laughing his ass off.

REVERAND SHARPTON IMPLIES MORMONS DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD

Reverend Sharp tongue is at it again. During a debate, he links Mormons with infidels, a remark which ranks right up there with his infamous, “if the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house," rant.

Reverend Sharpton said, "As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation."

Perhaps the good Reverend misspoke. I read his explanation. He said, "What I said was that we would defeat him, meaning as a Republican."

Huh?

I don't get it. But what I do get is, if you make a career out of throwing stones, you shouldn't live in a glass house.

LITTER BUGS PROTEST ACROSS U.S.

Last night I dreamt that Litter Bugs marched across the Nation, protesting unfair fines, claiming their civil rights are being violated by an unfair administration. The protesters loudly demanded the government recognize the rights of Litter Bugs and that they be treated with dignity. Litter Bugs also called for unconditional amnesty for those who have littered in the past.
What they didn’t do was address the fact that littering is a crime, nor did they make it clear why they should be exempt from committing this crime while others have to abide by that same law.

And when the Litter Bugs turned violent, when they starting throwing trash at law enforcement agents, the police had no choice but to respond. And now the police are being investigated.

Thank God it was only a dream.

COMMON SENSE DIES TODAY

OBITUARY


Common Sense, a popular resident of long standing, died today. According to reports, she chocked on a ham sandwich while reading the Sunday Times.

She is preceded in death by her father, Good Sense, her mother, Horse Sense, and an elder brother, Yankee Ingenuity.

She is survived by two nieces, Paula Cole Correctness and Lotta Hype, and a nephew, Rush T. Judgment.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests mourners send donations to the following organizations:

ACLU

GET THE HAM OUT FOUNDATION

DON IMUS EFFIGY FUND

ROSIE FOR PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN FUND

HAM MY ASS

A pre-teen put food on a table, in a school cafeteria, and now faces possible hate crime charges.

O.K., it was ham, like the kind you find on a pig's ass. And the students he put it in front of are Muslim. But a crime?

We take things too seriously these days. When I was in the fifth grade our teacher asked the class where our ancestors came from. I told the class my Mom's side of the family came from Germany. This was back in the mid sixties. In the South.

The next day I found swastikas carved on my books. Now, I was ticked. I wasn't a Nazi. And my momma wasn't no Nazi. During recess I found the kids who did the carving and I lit into them like a cyclone in a hay field. When the oats separated from the chaff, two of the three had black eyes and the third was sporting a blood splattered shirt. And I was no longer a Nazi. The next day the four of us went bass fishing together.

And that was that. No one was charged. The school didn't get involved. The sheriff wasn't called. We settled things and moved on. Eventually, we grew up and left childish things to the children.

WHAT'S BEHIND SHERYL CROW

In an effort to save the environment, SHERYL CROW wants us to use only one square of toilet paper.

Now, I don't know about you all, but I don't think I care to get in a swimming pool with the girl.

DON IMUS MUST BE PERPLEXED

A few days ago Oprah Winfrey said that white men can't dance.

And this morning the cast of The View was referring to other women as bitches.

I've been watching the news, the same networks who called for the head of Don Imus, but I must have missed the denouncements of these latest racial and sexists epithets. And the Reverend Al Sharpton has been conspicuously absent.

The Don Imus show averaged 361,000 viewers per episode. The View had over 3 million viewers last month. Oprah has the highest rated talk show in history.

I guess it's about numbers, not words.

But more troubling than the obvious double standard is the omission of these insulting remarks by television journalists; the same journalists who stripped the flesh from Don Imus in their moral fervor to eradicate bigotry and misogynistic comments from the airwaves. The talking heads are mute when it comes to reporting unfavorable comments made on shows which generate huge profits for the networks, especially when that money pays the talking heads.

STARTING TO SMELL LIKE HORSE MANURE

If I could afford to, I'd beat my Compaq Pressario, with it's fancy-smancy Vista operating system, with a sledgehammer. And the same goes for Windows Live OneCare.

I bought a new computer a month ago from Circuit City. I'm beginning to really hate that town. The salesman installed Windows Live OneCare for me.
Three days after I bought the computer I started having problems with the hibernate function. Computer would wake itself up, the screen flickered, and my icons disappeared. I was told my computer was screwing up because it was never personalized. The salesman skipped that part when he turned it on for the first time to install virus protection and the prompt didn't come up again when I hooked this piece of garbage up when I got home. I ended up taking the computer back for a replacement. That was a battle in itself, but I prevailed.

This time I personalized the computer and installed One Care myself. The product key code was not accepted and I notified Windows support. They responded to email and gave me a phone number to call. Today is day four and I'm still unable to install.

I've mentioned this before, but companies in this country should consider hiring people who speak english. I spent half the phone conversation asking tech to repeat information. It took five minutes to get my email address right. I'd say j, he'd repeat k. I'd say b, he'd repeat z.

One tech discovered I was attempting to sign in with the wrong email address and password. He asked a security question-where was mother born-and my answer didn't jive. I was becoming more then a little confused and was starting to wonder if Spike was in the room. And then I had an epiphany. The salesman who initially setup OneCare on first computer must have created a hotmail account for me, and the dumb son-of-a-you-know-what didn't tell me.

So I let the tech in on my discovery and he says, "No problem, I'll transfer you to someone to reset password and you can activate OneCare".

I'm transferred. I wait. I'm disconnected.

Now I'm getting ticked. I email a nasty-gram. Five minutes later the phone rings. I accept the apology, wait while my call is transferred, and get disconnected. Again.

My next nasty-gram contains a request for full refund. This prompts another call. Another apology. Tech tells me someone will call back in thirty minutes to resolve my complaint.

I'm still waiting. With a sledgehammer.

VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTING

At last report, 32 students are dead and 22 more have been wounded by a gun wielding nut, making this the most deadly mass shooting in America, a country known for both nuts and guns.

And no doubt, political pundits will wage war over gun control in the coming months. They always do following a tragedy. Network newscasters will parade a host of experts whose opinions will cancel each other out and the debate, while cathartic, will end in a stalemate; the chess pieces will be put up and the talking heads will turn to other topics until the next mass shooting.

But they miss the point. Gun control is not the problem. What we have is a people problem. A pistol, sitting in a drawer, or on top of a table for that matter, harms no one. The gun is not dangerous until picked up, until it's in the hand of someone bent on carnage.

More people are prone to commit violence these days. When I was in grade school, the older students left rifles and shotguns resting on gun racks in the cab of their trucks. And they didn't even lock their doors. Forth graders carried pocket knives. To us, guns and knives were tools, and nothing more.

But this was before our national divorce rate was over fifty percent. And it was before the term 'latch-key kids' was coined. And back then we prayed in class. And we said the Pledge of allegiance each morning in front of the flag. And we sat down to supper as a family and we talked about our day. We knew all our neighbors. And come Sunday morning, we sat in God's house, took in the sermon and sang hymns.

DON IMUS: RACIST OR JERK?

Sure, the comments Don Imus made about the players for the Rutgers women's basketball team were cruel. But were they racist?
When the story broke, I thought the outrage would be over his use of the word, 'ho', but people seem to be up in arms over the adjective nappy? What is wrong with a term that describes hair as being closely twisted or curled?
If the Reverend Al Sharpton, the loudest voice shouting from the crowd, were to describe a group of Scandinavian basketball players as silky haired ho's, would we shout racist?

Edy, a news commentator with Fox News actually reported that Don Imus has made racial slurs in the past, and she quoted Imus as saying: Colin Powell is a weasel, and that Bill Richardson- a Hispanic presidential candidate- is a sissy.
Am I missing something? I don't consider either word a racial slur.

Maybe it's because Imus made a comment about a group who happen to be of a different color? And if you do that, any word uttered can be construed as racism.
Calling these girls ho's was just plain wrong. But if using the word nappy makes him a racist then we need to whittle thousands of words from Webster’s dictionary.

WHAT'S WITH THE NIGHTLY NEWS?

I wonder what the crime rate is for my state. Have the number of violent crimes decreased? Have they increased?

How's the war on Terror going? Did the troop surge stabilize the region? How many American soldiers died last week?

How's the Presidential campaign shaping up? How many candidates are in the running? How many have a chance. What are their stands on the important issues facing this country. I'm just curious.

Will taxes increase.

How much is a gallon of gas going to set me back this summer?

I can tell you this, this week we will---

1. know the identity of Anna Nichole Smiths baby's daddy.
2. know the cause of her death.
3. know if Britney Spear's hair will grow back.
4. see three or four slow-car, cop chases
5. see an interview with American Idol and Trump losers.
6. listen to movie star-political commentators and strategists.
7. see another celebrity named to Rosie's "hit-list."
8. be shocked to discover college kids are getting stoned and having sex during spring break.

What we won't get, is the news.

"Goodnight Mr. Brinkley, wherever you are!"

Does anyone speak English anymore?

I bought a new computer last week. The setup instructions were not included so I had to call tech-support. I was connected to an automated system and the instructions were in spanish. I waited, and the second message was in english. I followed the prompt and finally reached a live operator. She spoke english, but her accent was thicker than the callouses on a politician's tongue. We stumbled through a lengthily conversation before she transferred me to the appropriate tech advisor. Her accent was even harder to decipher.

This "failure to communicate" resulted in my connecting the printer cable to a potted plant instead of the parallel port. The goods news is I now have some nice print-outs of a Boston fern.

Now, I am used to accents and dialects. My dads side of the family are born-again rednecks and my moms side hail from the Bronx by way of Germany. Thurty-thurd street to be exact. My fifth grade french teacher was from France and I have two Uncles whose parents came to this country from Italy. So I have a pretty good ear.

A couple of months ago I had to place a call to a Federal Governmental agency. The woman I spoke to was Korean. Not only was her accent difficult to understand, but her command of the english language was limited at best. You would think that people hired to man telephones, especially folks who either work for the government or who are in technology services would be required to have a certain "phone" presence.

Despite the frustration, I did learn something. The next time a telemarketer calls I'm going to tell them, "I no speekatee engleesh!"

MY UNCLE SAM

Paydays use to make me feel, well, patriotic.
Uncle Sam would get his cut and I got to keep
the rest. I was feeding the beast.

Freedom has a voracious appetite. But it keeps
the wolf from the door. And the Commies, the
fascists, and the Islamic fanatics.

And I was helping the less fortunate, the folks
wedged tight between a rock and some other
hard mother they were caught up against. I was
chipping in for food, and medical care, and job
training.

And my money was protecting the environment. I was
keeping snail darters from going the way of
the dodos. Damn snail darters. Where are they now when I need help.

I no longer get a paycheck. I'm on the other side now.
A bad back saw to that. And my uncle, that grand old fellow
in his star spangled top hat has turned his back on his aging
nephew. Bastard. I'd like to rip his stupid beard off.

I told him I'm disabled and showed him my doctors note.
He said he could not help me.
I told him I was hungry, and he gave me $2.97 a day to
feed myself. Six months later, he took away my allowance.

And I'm family.

But he has no qualms about feeding the neighbors kids. They sneak
over the fence and my Uncle Sam treats them to doctors,
and feeds them, and helps them buy low-cost homes.

My Uncle Sam even gave some of the bad kids Viagra after
they got out of jail for hurting my sisters and my little niece.

The old boy must be senile.
I may have to disown him.