Barak Obama won the Iowa Caucus tonight for the Democratic Party. This makes me pretty happy. But all the news is not this good.
Mike Huckabee won for the Republicans. Right now, he’s giving his speech on CNN right now, and standing behind him is Chuck Norris.
With Chuck Norris in his corner how can anyone hope to beat him.
I got this message for the second time in a few weeks today and it drives me nuts. It’s supposedly from Jay Leno and it’s all about how ungrateful Americans are. I’m not going to say that Americans aren’t ungrateful and spoiled, because there’s some truth there, but I have two problems with this e-mail.
First, it wasn’t written by Jay Leno, so I guess I’ll have to go back to not liking him because he’s not funny. (For the sake of ease, I’m still gonna blame Leno for this for the duration of this e-mail)
Second, it is a very selfish point of view, and also very simplistic. Leno’s basic point is this; In America we have an embarrassment of riches. We have homes, food, jobs, firemen, and police. What are we whining about?
We do have all of these things, I know I do personally, but is that all there is in life? Should I not be concerned about larger social issues like the environment or civil rights, or the war, or any of the other issues out there that deserve demand our attention.
When I was in high school I learned about Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of need. The basics are that humans have basic, fundamental needs that all humans seek out in order to feel fulfilled as people. It begins with physiological needs, like food and hunger. Until we have access to food and water we can’t spend time thinking about what’s on the next step of the pyramid. Which is safety and security; a place to live, and protection. Until you have food and water, and feel safe you can’t spend time thinking about the next step. Which is a sense of belonging and love, and the next step above that is self-esteem and recognition, followed by the top of the pyramid, self-actualization.
Jay Leno thinks all of our needs are met by the bottom two, most basic needs. We have those needs met, so personally we can go about the business of finding love and friendship, recognition in our work, and self-actualization. In society, it means we can focus on other things.
If we stopped striving to make the world better once each of us had food and shelter what a horrible world this would be. I’d prefer to work my way up the pyramid to try and achieve more in this life than four walls and a sandwich. And I’d prefer it if we, as a society demanded more of ourselves and each other. It’s just not enough to have grocery stores, fast food, homes, and police.
We have the luxury of being able to focus on the other issues in the world, and quite frankly, we have the responsibility.
P.S. The only part of that Jay Leno wrote was the last line. As part of his monologue. And it wasn’t even a funny joke. Peter Griffin was right.
"If you find Jay Leno funny, there’s a good chance I don’t care for you as a human being."
When I was younger the license plates in Indian said "Wander Indiana." I remember this because these stupid frakking license plates made me the get the word "wonder" wrong on a 4th grade spelling test. You have no idea how mad I was about this, but Mrs. Bemiss was hearing none of my objections.
I don’t know what the motto was a month ago, as I live in Illinois. My guess is "Now with Daylight Savings Time!" but don’t quote me on that. But as of April, and Congressman Mike Pence’s visit to Iraq. After visiting a Baghdad marketplace under heavy (and by heavy I mean the rough equivalent of what an elephant would weight under the increased gravity of the Red Kryptonian sun) military protection he compared it to "a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime."
Pence is from Columbus and went to Hanover. I’ve been to both of those places. I’ve not been to Iraq. Either I have a very different image of Iraq in my head than what is actually there (not frakking likely) or Mike Pence had a traumatic childhood and in his warped, broken mind the famous (at least to locals) architecture of Columbus and the rolling green hills of Madison look very much like the desert and the constant suicide bombings and gun fire remind him of the sound of speed boats on the river. It seems the latter is far more likely.
All of this has lead to the worst state motto since the Texas State Motto "No Presidential Assassinations in Over 40 years" *
"Indiana, just like Baghdad."
Though in fairness it’s also considered a sin to draw pictures of Indiana’s state prophet, Dick Lugar.
JT
* credit to Al Franken
This morning I did something that, let’s say seven years ago, I would have been very excited to do. I tuned in, for the first time, to the Dennis Miller radio show. I did this with one eye closed, the other squinting and my head turned away from the computer. I was more apprehensive than Gerry Fleck at his Dancing with the Stars audition.
The problem with Dennis is that somewhere around 9/12/01 he moved from being a pragmatic centrist with a razor sharp wit and more pop culture references than Sanjaya has mock votes to a reactionary right wing apologist who sadly, lost the funny.
Before this transformation I would have been really excited to get to hear him every day on the radio, riffing on the headlines of the day. Now, when it comes to Dennis Miller, I’m pretty much like any Mike Tyson fan. I remember fondly when he was the best in the game, and even though he hasn’t shown anything near that ability in a looooong time I still tune it, with the hope that he’ll deliver the one punch that will bring him back to prominence. I don’t really expect it to happen, but in the part of my brain where memories and hope combine to make a Panglosian reality, I think I’m gonna get what I really want.
I tuned in this morning and, while he didn’t throw any knock-out punches, he didn’t sit there in the corner as the bell rang to start the round, looking broken and defeated either.
I’m not really on board with his politics any more, but as long as he finds the funny again, we cool.
As an example of finding the funny. Today, while talking about drilling in Alaska, he compared it to the fridge in the garage. It’s cold, it’s out of the way and it’s full of goodies. It’s time for us to go there and grab some Gino’s Pizza rolls, cause the game is on.
Not a big fan of the idea, but I like the analogy.
Anyway, here’s hoping, cha cha.
I was just reading Sen. Joe Biden’s comments about Barrack Obama. This whole thing has been completely blown out of proportion. He was clearly just comparing Obama to Paul’s grandfather.
Of course this implies that Obama is "A King Mixer" and "Hates Group Unity." I also hear he’s been forging Senators signatures on their photos to sell on e-bay, pointing out to Joe Leiberman that Ted Kennedy’s always being taller than him just to spite him, and pretending he’s Evan Bayh and taking his invitation to the gambling club.
Still, he’s very clean.
JT
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