We've been told for weeks now that the passage of Obamacare is immanent. I've been holding off posting something new until I could get my addled brain around the dirty tricks, bribes and blatant disregard for the constitution that comprise the sausage factory that the legislative process has become.
While letting my thoughts wander from topic to topic, I came across a beautiful presentation by none other than the formerly Mr who is now the never married Mrs. Garrison, third grade teacher at South Park Elementary.
Forced to teach evolution, Mrs. Garrison proceeds to offer her take on this yet to be proven theory.
Sometimes, if you don't laugh (like while we await the monumental changes about to be wrought) you will end up crying.
S2
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
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
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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.]
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.]
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