Entries from March 2006 ↓

While Dan’s on the “complaining about the President” bandwagon, I’ll toss this one in for kicks. From Bill Maher’s September 19, 2005 show, some closing remarks directed at our fearless leader, possibly the worst president ever:

Mr. President, this job can’t be fun for you any more. There’s no more money to spend–you used up all of that. You can’t start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard’s bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one’s speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

“Now it’s time to do what you’ve always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It’s time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you’re saying: there’s so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don’t. I know, I know. There’s a lot left to do. There’s a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

“But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You’ve performed so poorly I’m surprised that you haven’t given yourself a medal. You’re a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

“On your watch, we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you’re just not lucky. I’m not saying you don’t love this country. I’m just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

“So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: ‘Take a hint.’

I particularly enjoyed the bit about the medal.

Keli and I have donated some time (and technically so have Bailey and Mason) to the Redwood Empire Food Bank, helping package food to be given that week to low-income/needy senior citizens. It was discouraging to know that even about 300 senior citizens in one of the most popular and toured counties in the the United States needed food to begin with.

This is an editorial that was sent in to The Press Democrat by the executive director of the Redwood Empire Food Bank:

CLOSE TO HOME
Which seniors will go hungry in Sonoma County this morning?
By DAVID GOODMAN

This morning, I have to single out 309 low-income seniors and tell them that they will no longer receive monthly care packages of food. This is the result of the Congress’ decision to inadequately fund the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, a program that serves more than 450,000 seniors across the country and 1,080 right here in Sonoma County.

Designed to improve the diets of the elderly, and help them stay healthy, the seniors can expect the following foods to be taken away from their already meager diets: fruits and vegetables (fresh and canned), juices, meats, fish, peanut butter, cereals and grain products, cheese and other dairy products.

This decision comes at time when the senior population in the United States is growing.

In Sonoma County, the number of people between 65 and 70 years of age will be increasing by 153 percent in the next 15 years. Stated another way, the number of seniors will increase from 14,500 to 36,700 in 15 years.

Which one of us will find ourselves in need during the coming years?

Many of us live paycheck to paycheck, with savings that provide no real security for the future. Ask anyone who has lost all of his or her savings due to pension collapses, caring for a family member, unexpected medical expenses or simply the harsh reality of living on a fixed income in an economy that continues to rise.

The axiom “children are our future” is often used. This is not the case for the 309 seniors who will lose their food. In fact, for most of us reading this newspaper, children are not our future either. Consider that by the time the children of today are in a position to help, it will be too late for the seniors in need of assistance this morning. Instead, we are the future, and it is our responsibility to care for people in need today and those in need tomorrow.

So, this morning, I need your help in making the decision as to which senior should not receive food.

When they ask, “Why? There’s plenty of food in our country,” one of us will need to explain that it’s not about the food, rather it’s a matter of priorities and that you, my neighbor, are not a priority in the eyes of the United States Congress.

This disappointing message will be just the first for low-income seniors in the coming months. In the president’s 2007 budget, the very same program has been eliminated, and if the Congress doesn’t do something about it, we are faced with cutting an additional 2,176 seniors, not to mention 489 children who also receive food through the same program.

As I consider homeland security, I can’t help but think about creating security for our own, the most deserving, those who have provided security for our nation in the past.

We are spending $1 billion a week on the war in Iraq. If we could just redirect 22 minutes of that effort, we could care for more than 450,000 seniors with the security they need to make it through the month with enough food to eat.

Take anyone of Sublime’s songs and strip out the references to weed, heroin, hookers, guns, dogs, and police; sprinkle in some references to the Jewish faith and you’ll have Matisyahu. Matisyahu is a name that I first heard around a year ago in a commercial. The clips they played during the 60 second TV spot caught my ear and once the commercial had ended I couldn’t remember the strange name. In the last few months Matisyahu has been getting more and more radio play, and the release of his first studio album a couple of weeks ago only served to boost the advertisements.

Matisyahu Miller is a Hasidic Jew who sings about all things Jewish in a funky, pleasing hybrid of reggae and ska that more than once borders on rap. I’m not Jewish, but I still enjoy the passion in his voice and you have to respect anyone who gets up on stage for over an hour, under the intense heat of the stage lights, and belts out his heart and soul wearing full Hasidic Jew garb.

I’ve heard a few tracks of Matisyahu’s studio release “Youth” and, quite honestly, I’m not terribly fond of it. I get the feeling that Matisyahu is just one of those artists which I enjoy their live sound more than the scripted, pieced together sound that is the result of hours and hours in a studio. One of the many great things about his songs is that they’re child-friendly, uplifting and encouraging in an industry that all too often throws at us songs that I don’t want my five-year-old daughter listening to, or people that I don’t want her having as role models based on their actions or lyrics.

My only complaint with Matisyahu is that he does this… thing in his songs. I don’t quite know how to describe it, but once you hear it you know what I’m referring to. He does this thing where it sounds as if he’s forgotten the words to his songs and so he free-styles some nay incomprehensible words. But he does it in almost every song and it can get sort of annoying.

Check out the track called “Beat Box” on this album though, it’s absolutely amazing. What makes it even more enjoyable is the vision of a dude in Hasidic Jewish clothes busting out with the “Beat Box.”

I would definitely recomment picking up this CD for many reasons. Some may take the lyrics to heart, while others, like myself, will enjoy the album for the sound. Either way, you can’t lose.

Man, things have been crazy lately.

On Thursday night I went to see Flogging Molly at Slim’s in San Francisco with some buddies I’ve known since high school. I’ve been a fan of Flogging Molly for a while. They’re an Irish punk band that’s been around for ages. They’re the singers of ballads the likes of “Drunken Lullabies”, “Swagger” and “Rebels of the Sacred Heart”.

They made a rare stop in the Bay Area as part of The Green 17 Tour which was sponsored by Guinness. A tour of Irish influenced punk bands sponsored by Guinness? How could you go wrong?! The first opening band was from southern California, and although I forget their name, they were freaking awesome. Rarely is the opening, opening band good, but they were the exception. They sounded more like a cross between Jet and Foo Fighters than Irish, but oh well. The second band was a group of guys from Idaho (of all places…) called Scotch Greens and they were superb as well. Extremely high energy and after the audience figured out what their sound was, a mosh pit was formed.

Flogging Molly was the headlining band and from the moment they took the stage everyone pushed forward to be closer to the action. You could tell something was about to go down because of the sudden mass of people, shoulder-to-shoulder, chugging the last of their beers so as not to have their hands indered by holding anything. From the instand the first chord was played, the entire place erupted into a booze-induced mosh pit (or ‘gully’ as the band referred to it). For the next two hours or so Flogging Molly played their hearts out and their high energy songs of drinking, family and all things Irish only served as fuel on the fire of those in the pit.

Got hit in the head a few times. A big boot to the shin. Somehow I ended up with a sore right knee and a big bruise on my back. It was great!

On Saturday (yesterday) we had Keli’s family and my sister and her family over to the house for an early birthday party for Mason. Our little Wee-Man will be one year old on Tuesday. Crazy to think that a year has flown by already. That year was definitely filled with stress, prayers, tears and happiness as we tested Mason for everything from rare blood viruses to Cistic Fibrosis to things found in biopsies to see why he was so little. In the end, he’s just a happy, healthy baby that is destined to be on the wee side (hence the nickname ‘Wee-Man’). Thanks again to all of you who sent us happy thoughts, prayers and words of encouragement.

I received this in an email from a collegue of mine:

Teacher Arrested

At New York’s JFK airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, log tables, & a calculator. At a press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement.

He is being charged with transporting weapons of math instruction. “Al-Gebra is a fearsome cult,” Gonzalez said. “They desire average solutions by means and extremes, & sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values. They use secret code names like ‘x’ and ‘y’ and refer to themselves as ‘unknowns,’ but we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval, with co-ordinates in every country. They test the limits. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say: “There are three sides to every triangle.”

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, “If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes.”

FEAR AL-GEBRA!!!