I need a platitude adjustment

plat·i·tude
   /ˈplætɪˌtud, -ˌtyud/ Show Spelled[plat-i-tood, -tyood] Show IPA
–noun
1.
a flat, dull, or trite remark, esp. one uttered as if it were fresh or profound.

If I have said it once I've said it a thousand times, the ability to effectively communicate in an original and effective way has gone the way of the dinosaur in these Twitter-filled days of instant messaging. When one believes that any salient point can be made in 140 characters or less or that a platitude laced political speech proves the utterer is statesmanlike, we further erode a social link that is retreating faster than a Greenland glacier in Al Gore's worst nightmare: the ability to convey information from one person to another. R U Serious? OMG yes. IMHO txt spk is ruining English. Woot!

Unless you live in a cave, you've probably attended a presentation in which the presenter used a PowerPoint to help impart knowledge. Residing in a cave isn't even a valid excuse. I am sure Usama Bin Laden has seen his fair share of Webinars on topics as varied as "This year's suicide bomber vest, slimming yet potent", "Dirty Bombs: a path to clean the hedonist world", "Beheadings, they aren't just for Jihad anymore" and the ever popular "Vestal Virgin or Goat: Heaven can wait". I'd be willing to bet an Obama stimulus check that most of these PowerPoint presentations contained enough trite lemons to make more lemonade than you could drink in a lifetime. The hellbound road of good intentions has seen plenty of angels overtaken by fools rushing ahead to prove that no good saying goes underused when it comes to success and the hard work that it takes to achieve it. Huh? Exactly.

There are two commonly used phrases that I would be happy to never hear again. The first is used in about a third of tax related news articles from about mid-March to mid-April: "There are two unavoidable things in life, death and taxes". This self-defeating point of view, despite being inaccurate, is the type of saying that allows elected officials to continue their unrelenting grab at every penny that passes before their eyes. In addition to the inevitable terrible twosome, I can guarantee at some point you will become ill, have to empty your bladder and bowels, spill milk and sneeze. But I will eat right, exercise and wash my hands so that illness is less frequent and my bodily functions are more regular. I will take care when pouring a glass of milk and I'll cover my mouth when i sneeze. I will also make every effort to fight unnecessary and imprudent taxes being levied and try to leave a personal legacy that will last beyond the grave. So let's move beyond the worn out utterance of Mr. Franklin and find a new way to complain this tax season. Remember, old Ben also suggested the turkey as our national bird although the staff here thinks that is a topic ripe to readdress.

in·san·i·ty
Pronunciation: \in-ˈsa-nə-tē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural in·san·i·ties
Date: 1590

1 : a deranged state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder (as schizophrenia)
2 : such unsoundness of mind or lack of understanding as prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or as removes one from criminal or civil responsibility

Second on the no play list is the tried and true: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result". I would swear in a court of law that not a week has gone by in the last 10 years without my having heard someone utter this trite bit of pseudo brilliance as though they were the only one in the room to have heard it before. A court of law is probably the only place it belongs. Insanity is no longer a medical term or condition, it is a legal definition and relates to a person's capacity to be found innocent or guilty of a crime. Instead, it is used in nine out of ten business presentations to explain why companies continue to make wrong or ill advised decisions which lead to failure. What is insane is that those responsible for these decisions are allowed to explain away their mistakes or inadequacies with a quote from a bad haired genius. We would all be better off if, the next time this ploy is tried, instead of nodding like a Donald Trump bobble head doll on the set of the Apprentice, someone did their best Rohm Emmanuel impersonation and said, "It's not insanity, it is the fact you are a F$#king Retard!" It may be their last act on the company payroll but at least they'd go out with a bang.

I doubt we will be able expunge either of these platitudes from their place on the rotation list of useful utterances but life goes on. But every cloud has a silver lining, since anything that can go wrong will go wrong, many of the presentations these are being put in to will probably fail to run and the presenter will be left to wax extemporaneously about a subject they know as in depth as the words on their cliff notes. If you find yourself in such a position, just wing it. It won't be long after the meeting ends until all will be water under the bridge. Most likely everyone else in the room has had the same happen to them because no man is an island and since misery loves company, they will go easy on you.

Soon, I will address the annoying practice of elucidating, or explaining in more detail, larger words used in a conversation because you assume the reader is too stupid to comprehend, or understand. To do it now would just obfuscate, or confuse, the subject here. And, of course, we will also discuss the annoying practice of inserting definitions of words as block quotes or call outs to make your article seem more scholarly.



S2

Air and space nauseum

Tonight, on the eve of the start of the Catholic Church's Lenten season, all eyes turn to the hedonist haven of New Orleans as the drunken and debauched have the sinner's equivalent of a condemned man's last meal by consuming copious amounts of alcohol and debasing themselves by flashing all sorts of body parts in exchange for a few pennies worth of plastic beads before their forty days of penitent living begins. Sounds like fun to me!

This week, I will be on the road just a few days, flying to the city that wears its sin on its sleeve all year long and doesn't need a religious holiday to cut loose; Las Vegas. I don't know if it a testament to age, sobriety or common sense but, like tonight, I will most likely be snug in my room early in the evening researching another blog instead of pickling my liver on the 24 hour a day playground that is the Strip. They do have free beer at the hotel for a few hours so I may have a few; just to keep my liver from getting complacent.

The anxiety for my trip will be the flight from Utah to Nevada. Flying on Southwest Airlines to save money (sic), for me, is a stressful game of seat mate musical chairs that inevitably has me straddling the aisle because the not-so-frequent flier in the middle's thighs are invading my 17" of ass space more aggressively than Hitler moved in to Poland. Even worse is when they decide to raise the arm rest to its full and upright position which opens the aisle seat to middle seat border to a flood of unrestricted fat emigration equivalent to the rush of East Germans in to Berlin after Mr. Gorbachev finally tore down that wall. Like a svelt sun tanning beach goer on the Thailand coast is washed to sea in a Tsunami, I spend the hour long flight fighting the wave of human flesh trying to push me in to the airplane's aisle and in to the path of an oncoming drink cart.

I do feel for overweight people. As a person with enough miles on my physical odometer to be well out of warranty, I have to choose my meals with more care and spend more time swearing at Tony Horton and his "bring it" routines than I had to before in order to maintain a BMI that keeps me out of the store to buy new pants and off Michelle Obama's obesity radar. I can see how a person's weight can get out of hand. But seriously, at what point does a person who makes a conscious decision to eat another muffin top shortly after seeing their own waistline muffin top over their belt as they dress in morning begin to deserve our sympathy?

There are some who are clinically obese for reasons beyond their control. There are others who aren't. In the news the past few days is self-admitted fatso and highly overrated movie maker Kevin Smith. Mr. Smith was kicked off a Southwest flight when his girth was deemed a safety hazard and thanks to the fact any twit can now twitter to the world instantly, the rotund one was able to gripe, bitch and whine in 140 characters or less. At the root of the problem, and against Mr. Smith's point, is that he had purchased two seats, one for each cheek, on a flight but decided to try and catch an earlier departure. The earlier sardine can that is your typical Southwest Airlines flight only had one seat available for Mr. Smith. Like trying to squeeze ten pounds of Hollywood ego in to a five pound bag, getting the Clerks director in to a single seat proved an insurmountable task and the airline was forced to ask him to deplane. Silent Bob didn't live up to his character name and began tweeting immediately.



In Mr. Smith's defense, he admits he is fat. He is so fat, he knew to buy two seats. So why, when he made the decision to fly earlier than scheduled does he feel the need to condemn Southwest Airlines for enforcing a customer of size rule that he tacitly endorsed by his decision to purchase the extra space for his spare tire?

It can't be easy for larger, o.k. fat, people to fly. But why do they have the right to inconvenience others? Why must I rebuild Hadrian's Wall every time I board a plane to ensure safe haven to enjoy a book? The norms, as Kevin Smith refers to those who must be height weight proportionate, have the right to enjoy their full purchased seat. I view the dividing arm that is the arm rest between seats in the same way I look at a fence surrounding my property. Neighbor, you can do what you want up to the point where you cross it. When the person next to me on the plane begins to ooze under the arm rest I want to yell like the old man in the neighborhood at the the rowdy little kids to "stay off my lawn!" Even worse is when the ground attack of my seatmate's flanks are encroaching on my defensive flanks while there is an air war being waged by the crying baby one row back and the little brother goose stepping his way up the back of my seat.

Perhaps the solution is to make the metal detector we all must go through to enter the terminal the same width as your average airplane seat. If a passenger can't make it through, they don't board the plane! If they can do that, we will only need a way to muzzle children and then, once again, the skies will be friendly to fly.

S2
[ED Note: The staff at NoMatoMiPavo does not despise or condemn overweight people. We understand that you are fully aware, and often painfully and embarrassingly aware, of your size in situations such as a transcontinental flight. Many of you probably work at losing weight and set backs in exercise and diet regimens are harder to overcome every time they occur. But obesity can be overcome. We've seen many people do it. This blog is not meant as an attack on you but simply an effort to show the other side.]

Nobody beats Obama....

Or more accurately...anybody does.

As the list of Democrat elected officials retiring grows as a rate only exceeded by the growth of our national debt, The ONE is seeing his popularity and approval shrink faster than the hopes global climate change champions in the wake of ever increasing snow drifts in nearly every state of the country.

From what were historically high approval rates and a nearly cult like following, Obama is now polling almost dead even with... well... anybody.
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A recent Gallup poll shows that the GOP could run just about anyone with a pulse and they would have a chance at unseating the one once thought sure to serve three terms as President before retiring to his rightful place on Mount Rushmore.

Three years, when talking about election cycles, is an eternity so much could change before voters are again lured to the polls by promises of a life uncomplicated by candidates from all parties and the president's downward trend could easily be reversed. All it would take is his going a little gansta.

S2

Atranta's new metlo rine is lacist

or...

Eyeing a new slant to nip a problem in the bud

It seems every time the sun rises in this land of ours, there is another group seeing red because they've been slighted, belittled or referred to in a way they feel is racist.

On the face of it, you might think a story about a group of Asian-Americans being upset because officials at Atlanta's MARTA (rapid rail system) decided to name the branch that happens to run in to the heart of a popular Asian-American area Yellow was a made up news item. Well, my friends, it is right here in black and white.

Despite the fact several other major cities with rail systems use color coded lines, including yellow and the highly unlikely scenario that this color was chosen because of the race of rail's surrounding citizenry, the angry horde is threatening to hold their breath until they turn blue unless MARTA officials meet and agree to spend an undetermined amount of taxpayer greenbacks to change the line's color designation from yellow to, get this, Gold.

MARTA officials have acquiesced and are rolling out the red carpet for members of the nonprofit Pan Asian Center for Community Services to meet and offer their solution; a set of stickers to be placed over the offending colored signs. These members must not have spent much time on a city rail system because they don't realize there will be stickers, spray paint and various other substances placed on these newly printed signs soon enough.

I've not seen a full map of the MARTA system and don't know Atlanta well enough to determine if the black line goes to a predominantly African-American area, the Brown line goes to predominantly Cuban-American territory, the Red line goes to the Native-American casino, the Pink line goes to Alternative-American closet and bedroom communities and the White line goes to American of northern European descent super rich-American suburbia but I am fairly sure these colors won't be as coordinated as your average Benetton advertisement. This rainbow of stereotypes might actually make the city more ethno-friendly to all but the most color blind of visitors.

Still, you would think someone in the upper echelons of MARTA's gray matter trust would have seen this coming. In fact, the potential White knight in this story is non other than former MARTA employee, John Yasutake, who voiced concerns regarding the name change during a staff meeting a month before the decision was inked. If only his concerns would have been heard and heeded, we might not have so many people feeling blue.

Sign of the times

Sometimes, you just have to chuckle.

Hey palm readers, talk to the hand

As predicted, it didn't take long for the mainstream media news corpse (sic) to bury in the body of their print and verbal reports any mention of yet another verbal gaff by The ONE (see previous blog post here). Instead, the issue (sic) that has them wringing their hands in gleeful anticipation of delivering a left-winged and left-handed bitch slap to the Tea Party faithful is the fact Sarah Palin wrote a few crib notes on the palm of her hand when delivering a speech and answering a few questions.



Harry "the voice" Shearer opened his interview on Keith "the self-absorbed feaux male" Olbermann's show with a palm-reading joke. No sooner had the ink dried on Ms. Palin's palm and the Huffington Post grabbed on to the topic and devoted a bunch of digital ink to covering it. Chris Matthew's off handed remarks aren't even worth mentioning and Andrea Mitchell on CNN stepped way outside the bounds of journalistic neutrality with a rambling shtick of "callouts" that had her co-reporters (sic) giggling like the schoolgirls who usually resort to such hand writing on final exam day. Perhaps the examination all of these intellects (sic) should undertake is in to the depths of their angst over anything Palin.

There are supposedly two main issues at hand with Palm-gate. On one is the fact Sarah Palin blasphemed the anointed one by pointing out his unprecedented use of the teleprompter for everything from political speeches to grade school presentations to ordering a hot dog with Dijon mustard and Giardiniera (which he reads as "Garden era"). [ED Note: yes this is an alternative spelling of Jardiniere] Once it was pointed out that the hand notes in question here were not for her speech but were little reminders for the question and answer period of the conference, the gloves came off. I guess the recorders of fact (sic) for the mainstream (sic) media forget that Obama actually used teleprompters to answer "off the cuff" pre-screened questions during a press conference right after his election.

On the other hand, it is being stated that the hand written palm notes are further evidence of the former Governor's lack of intellect. She can't even remember five words? When are these talking head, scripted and intern reliant denizens of Mensa (sic) going to realize their questioning of anyone's intelligence is the pot calling the kettle black?

The root of this latest scandal (sic) to rock the beltway is that it is another example the media working left hand in glove with all things Obama; or more accurately all things anti-Palin. I've not raised my hand to jump on the Palin for President band wagon but she deserves better than the back handed and sick way she is being treated.

I guess making fun of a broad and her hand is worth two shots at Bush.

S2

Ahh the Body Politic

Politics can be brutal and those in politics can be, and usually are, petty little whining narcissists who make even the slightest of gaffs in to issues requiring letters of apology and review committees of the highest order to be seated.

President Obama recently threw craps for a second time when he said that in these hard financial times, people should not spend college funds gambling in Las Vegas. Everyone from the Nevada state speaker of the house to Harry "he speaks well for a black man" Reid came to the table with Poker faces demanding The ONE settle up his debt to those slighted in the Silver State. Not wanting to hurt anyone's feeling more, the President ordered a minor staffer to draft a letter expressing an appropriate amount of consolation and begging forgiveness. Whew. I am glad we nipped that crisis in the bud.

Last week White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel stirred a few chromosomes in those on the right when he referred to liberal activist groups who were opposed to Health Care reform as F$%*ing retarded. Faster than the your average Special Olympics gold medal winner could run a 50-yard dash the calls arose for his firing. Instead of firing a guy for offending the parents of mentally or physically challenged children (kids who probably already know they are mentally or physically challenged)with an off hand remark, why don't we suggest firing those who retard legitimate progress in our government?



Finally, we come to another verbal gaff by the world's most famous teleprompter reader. During the White House Prayer Breakfast, an event skipped last year and with interesting speeches by each the current and a former First Lady, The ONE read the word corpsman (core man) as "corpse man" several times. As a singular event, this is funny. It is also fodder for every right of center leaning talk show host and television talking head to poke fun at the orator in chief. I can't help but wonder, in light of the over reactions referenced above, how long it will be until the Society of Funeral Parlor Directors or the Affiliated Grave Diggers Local 456 Union begin calling for investigations and letters of apology. What will prove interesting is how the mainstream media reacts. Will they herald this gaff with any of the zeal they did when George W said Nucular (phonetically spelled here)instead of nuclear or any of his many malapropisms? Or will this add to the body of evidence that the media is more interested in shaming a Republican at every turn but Democrats get free rides more luxurious than Nancy Pelosi's recently remodeled jumbo jet?

When life fit in a Prius

The ONE just sent his budget to congress and it is evident that, despite the so-called spending freeze announced in the State of the Union address last week, the spending in Washington will continue unabated. The debt ceiling has been raised several times and our elected officials seem to have the "I still have checks I can't be broke" syndrome so common among recent college grads on their own with their very first bank account.

I am at a loss to understand the need for more and more consumption in an age when we are bombarded with ads to continue to conserve to "save the planet". I can only suppose government officials equate spending to power and, after all, that is the true quest of those in the elected elite in our country; acquire more power.

On the way from the airport to my hotel this evening, I saw in the lane beside me a young girl with a car piled full of packing boxes, laundry baskets and a mish mash of other receptacles so full she was either moving or a member of some new breed of homeless living in her car devotees.

I remember the days when everything I owned would fit in to a 1978 Buick LeSabre. Those belongings made several cross country trips and occupied many different residences on my way from the backwoods of Pennsylvania to the thriving metropolis of Salt Lake City. Now, were a move in order, several vans or a really big semi-tractor trailer would need to be called in to handle the accumulated crap that a natural born hoarder collects. Crap that, truly, serves no purpose other than the fact I want it.

There is nothing wrong with using one's gains gotten from legitimate means to purchase truck loads of knick knacks and pattiwacks and dog bones for the purpose of personal enjoyment or neighborhood one upmanship. After all, that is the American dream; conspicuous consumption of the highest order.

It is a different story though when our elected officials treat the public coffers like some gigantic piggy bank to be used to treat their constituents to pork barrel projects like some preteen Carnegie emptying the bank to buy pork rinds for his classmates to curry favor. If our government acted more like the young college grad and kept their consumption to that which fit, not in to the vehicle of their choice but, in to the vehicle of our economy, we wouldn't have deficit spending as far as the eye can see. It is right that we, as individuals, grow our personal fortunes and acquire wealth as we can. A government is not an individual. It needs to keep it's growth confined to what the economy can drive and no more.


S2
(Editors note: The bald man is in a hotel with pathetically slow internet and chose to write a beer fueled extemporaneous diatribe with no links and no research.)