Thou shalt root for the Steelers. Violaters will be spammed.
Just kidding.
(Or *am* I?)
I have leftover Chinese food or a Bastille Salad. I made the last thing up based on a salad I had at a brasserie near the Bastille when I was on a business trip. Bacon gives me a lardon so I used 3 slices of thick cut bacon and chopped them into bite sized pieces. For the rest, make a nice French vinaigrette and toss in some boiled new potatoes and steamed green beans. Toss. Mix some salad greens with English salad cream. Sprinkle with lardons, small cubes of cheese like gruyere and tomato wedges. Top with marinated potatoes and green beans. Garnish with boiled egg. (I hate boiled egg but that’s what was on it so if you like them, go for it).
Preferably eaten with baguette and some white wine. Screw it, I’m drinking the last beers.
What the hell is our problem, feminists of America?
As the hair-flipping, tweeny-bopper-imitating Naomi Wolf giddily claimed on the Teevee, we have instantly achieved all we could possibly want simply by electing Barack Obama to be our next President. I mean, hel-LLLLLOOOOO! What else could we possibly desire? Why don’t we just go away, and stop embarrassing well-behaved womens’ magazines so? Perhaps we should consult with our pastors and husbands before opening our big fat mouths again!
Well, Naomi dahlink, we have ISSUES – and not the emotional kind.
Just as no one in the corporate media or the Democratic Party would admit that the objections of millions of Democratic activists to Barack Obama were based on something other than race, patriarchy-enablers like Ms. Wolf refuse to acknowledge that feminist objections to Obama are based on…anything at all.
But we do object; we object most strenuously. In a year when Senator Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win a primary, and went on to win the most primary votes of any candidate, male or female; in a year when Governor Sarah Palin became the first vice-presidential nominee in 24 years (and the first one from the Republican Party), Ms. Magazine chose to highlight a man on the cover of their magazine – and not just any man: a man that had run a blatantly misogynistic campaign in order to defeat these women, and to win the Presidency of the United States. What woman worth her uterus would not be a tad exercised at this revolting development?
Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent book, is about the characteristics of leaders and other success stories. In case you didn’t know, geniuses don’t automatically rise to the top of the food chain. In fact, quite a few end up as security guards on the midnight shift. It is also true that you don’t need to be a genius to be a success. If your IQ is around 120, you’re capable of doing just about anything you set your mind to.
So, if ability is not the determining factor to becoming a success at anything, what are the factors? Gladwell identifies several including opportunity, family background, creativity, the degree to which the culture you live in is “top down” and one other teeny-tiny thing- practice. Yep, that old adage “practice makes perfect” is absolutely true. If you want to become an expert at anything and be able to create new things from your starting materials, you have to have a lot of practice time under your belt. The research points to a very consistent number of hours to attain this level of mastery for any field- 10,000 hours.
This week, we’ve seen a very dramatic demonstration of that requirement in the person of Chesley Sullenberger. Captain Sullenberger, a 1973 graduate of the Air Force Academy, former fighter pilot and US Airways pilot used all of those hours of practice and experience to glide his aircraft into the icy waters of the Hudson River after it was disabled by birdstrike. Oh, did I mention that Sullenberger had a glider license as well? All of the elements of success came together for Sullenberger and his crew including the cockpit training that allowed for him to get control of the aircraft from his co-pilot. But it was Sullenberger’s years of practice, practice, practice with jets and gliders that allowed him to create and execute a water landing from a gliding AirBus.
I woke up this morning to a headline in the NYTimes that declares that the nation has faith in Barack Obama and will wait patiently while he gets his $%#@ together. That’s great because Obama has virtually no practice time under his belt. His whole political career has consisted of a lot of amazing opportunities and family background. He doesn’t strike me as a creative type. I hang out with a lot of creatives including my Brook who has a surplus. Obama’s no creative. He does have an uncanny knack for staging. I’m beginning to think even the Reverend Wright debacle was carefully staged so he could deliver a speech on racism. But choreographing a campaign is quite a different thing from running a country. This sounds obvious but it is even more important in Obama’s case.
George Bush was allowed to get away with murder because his predecessor had left the place in tip-top shape, having had 8 years of a governorship and 8 years of a presidency to practice. We know that Bush didn’t practice and was a lazy president. But there was enough of a cushion built into the economy that we could ride out Bush’s presidency. Now, that cushion is gone. Here is when experience matters a great deal. We could have had Hillary Clinton who was there for the 8 years of governor training, 8 years of presidential training and 8 years of senatorial training. That would have given her. 210,240 hours of experience to fall back on. One could argue that she wasn’t running anything for 16 of those years but we know that she wasn’t a typical first lady and she took on health care and peace in Northern Ireland while the Big Dawg was president. So, OK, let’s take away her 8 years in Arkansas because that was not at a federal level. That would leave her with 140,160 hours. Let’s give her a month off for every year for vacation. That brings us to 128,640 hours. Let’s give her a 40 hour work week. That brings us to 30,720 hours. Not bad.
Now, let’s look at Obama. We’ll exclude all of his work on the state level just as we did for Clinton. It’s fair. She did tons of work for Arkansas in the areas of education and children’s welfare but let’s put it aside for a moment. He’s been a senator for 4 years. We’ll give him a month off for vacation every year and a 40 hour week. Yeah, he’s probably worked more than that per week during the campaign season but it normalizes with respect to Clinton. That gives him 7,680 hours. At this rate, it will take him a couple of years for him to know the emergency procedures.
Slowly but surely, the Kool Kidz at the “progressive” blogs are waking up from their self-induced koolaid daze, and discovering the truth about their messiah. The bottom line? Obama is not a liberal. Obama is the second coming of Ronald Reagan. He’s knocking himself out to woo the Republicans, and he couldn’t care less what you or the pushover Democrats in Congress think.
What was your first clue, Obots? You couldn’t be bothered to read his books or actually listen to what he said during the primaries, could you? Nooooooo! You just bought the whole hopey changey swindle and proceeded to force him down America’s throat, and now we’re all stuck with this lemon. And now your whining and crying, your agonized moans and groans will reverberate through blogosphere 1.0 for the next four years. Get over it boys. You did it to yourselves and dragged the rest of us along with you. Wall Street is celebrating your gullibility and stupidity. Didja know they’re paying more than anyone for his obscenely expensive inaugural celebration? Continue reading →
Since many of us would rather pull our lips up over our heads and secure them in place with vice grips than watch a minute of the travesty of the overlong, overblown, overindulgent, overpriced installation of the Mass Marketed Messiah as president of our country, I’ve decided to offer some fun alternative activities to fill the next few interminable days (or, put another way, the next excruciatingly long, infinitely numbered seconds, minutes and hours) without access to television or any other normal news sources. All are welcome to share their own suggestions with a sure-to-be grateful PUMAsphere.
First, many PUMAs, especially those of us who are of a particular age, could benefit from a good wax. Shaving, depilitating, arching, and/or plucking unwanted stray hairs from every surface of one’s body where the unruly bastards insist upon growing (especially that one where the gray ones you can only see with a mirror and get to by contorting yourself into positions younger cheerleaders would envy) can provide hours of distraction, with the added benefit of a smooth, hairless body ready for love when you’re done. Win-win.
Next, along the same lines, clip the toenails of every living being in your household. Not only will you be kept busy, wood floors will subsequently go unscuffed, family members’ socks will last much longer, and spouses and lovers will be slightly more tolerable bedmates when they place their cold, scruffy feet where they’re not appreciated. Additionally, think of all the extra calories you’ll be able to consume guilt-free after chasing small children and pets for hours.
The next suggestion will be met with skepticism by some, but bear with me. Clean. I know, I hate housework, too, but look at it this way, when will there ever be another time when scrubbing toilets is a preferable alternative to anything? See, makes sense, huh? I’m sure there are closets that need organizing, floors that need scrubbing, windows that need washing, and hundreds, if not thousands of little crevices that would benefit from the application of a little elbow grease with a toothbrush, even in the cleanest abodes. And, for people who have fussy-clean houses like that, give the help the day off and do something yourself. That should make time fly for you.
Alphabetize your internet files. I have no idea what possible good that will do, but at least while you’re doing it, you’re not doing anything else, which is the point. You could also measure your head, as well as the heads of all your friends and family members, sew up the legs of all the underwear in the house, microscopically examine things that come out of your face, make random lists, and read back copies of old magazines cover-to-cover. Make up silly songs and corresponding dances, then attempt to teach them to strangers at random bus stops and Starbucks locations. Wander aimlessly. Drink.
Those of you who like to cook could create new inauguration-inspired recipes from ingredients past their freshness dates and forgotten leftovers. Read the phone book. Teach yourself whatever language they speak in Uzbekistan. Do all your laundry by hand. Eat. Learn to use all the tools and appliances received as gifts over the years and stored in dark places in the back of other unused stuff, even the Flow-Bee and the BeDazzler. Watch your CrockPot cook. Grind coffee beans one at a time in a mortar and pestle. Sleep. Make those “special brownies” you haven’t made since college and won’t go to jail for now, eat them and giggle.
Have a bad ’60’s movie marathon, followed by listening to any old LP’s and 8tracks you still have the ability to play. Figure out your neighbor’s taxes. Window shop. Give yourself an online physical. Scour the house looking for pencils to sharpen. Study ancient art history. Teach a stray dog new tricks. Fly paper airplanes. Doodle. Play board games. Smell every surface in your home. Take something apart and see if you can reassemble it. (Note: only do this with disposable things you can do without, not your new Lexus.) Write a letter to somebody you fell out with years ago and tell them why. Whether you send it or not, you’ll feel better and be amazed how long it took to remember the details. Read the Bible. Backwards. Take photos in very low light from weird angles with somebody else’s phone.
I’m sure if you think about it, you can come up with hundreds of innovative ways to get yourself and the rest of us suffering PUMAs through the next few days without losing too many of us to a lifetime of blank staring, mindless babbling and drooling through our tears.
Thou shalt root for the Steelers. Violaters will be spammed.
Slowly but surely, the Kool Kidz at the “progressive” blogs are waking up from their self-induced koolaid daze, and discovering the truth about their messiah. The bottom line? Obama is not a liberal. Obama is the second coming of Ronald Reagan. He’s knocking himself out to 
Since many of us would rather pull our lips up over our heads and secure them in place with vice grips than watch a minute of the travesty of the overlong, overblown, overindulgent, overpriced installation of the Mass Marketed Messiah as president of our country, I’ve decided to offer some fun alternative activities to fill the next few interminable days (or, put another way, the next excruciatingly long, infinitely numbered seconds, minutes and hours) without access to television or any other normal news sources. All are welcome to share their own suggestions with a sure-to-be grateful PUMAsphere.
The Confluence 