I think I’ve made it sufficiently clear that I am a misanthrope,  especially in regard to misguided academics who believe they can “change the world” without ever having been a part of it.   It is easy for an enclaved oligarchy to make pronouncements and policies from high atop the ivory tower, but far more difficult to make utopia happen where the rubber meets the road.  Karl Marx couldn’t do it and Lenin and Stalin couldn’t do it either.  Hitler’s “Thousand Year Reich” lasted thirteen years- and we all know where the Nazis and their supposed master race ended up.  Forced collectivism fails whether it comes from the far left or the far right.  If the current crop of Marxists in our current government, from Obama on down, would bother to study history instead of creating fantasy revisionist versions of it, they would realize a very huge, very inconvenient truth: Socialism, Communism, Marxism, Nazism, whatever “ism” you want to use for forced collectivism- does NOT work and only leads humanity to Godlessness and evil.

Orwell (himself a former socialist) was eerily correct in his observations on forced collectivism and it sort of creeps me out to think about it.  In 1984 it was all about surveillance- Big Brother was watching you every day all the time no matter what you’re doing.   Big Brother made sure you woke up, went to work, stayed productive, that you ate when and what you were supposed to, exercised when you were supposed to, procreated when you were supposed to, etc. ad nauseam.  I think Orwell would have been horrified by how true his prognostications have become.  Today we have surveillance cameras watching freaking traffic lights to make sure the red-light violators are duly fined.  I don’t doubt that all of us are on camera at least for part if not all of our days, and for what purpose?

If security is the idea, perhaps to the honest there is a fleeting thought of having one’s crime captured on tape that acts as a deterrent, but surveillance usually only provides a record of the violence or offense that has already occurred.  In my mind there is just as much crime, but now we get to see it happen and watch like the secret sadistic voyeurs we all are deep down.  It is probably not to my credit that I have some sort of pathological desire to watch this stuff after it is captured on tape, but I freely admit TruTV is one of my favorite channels. 

I say it every year around this time- the butt end of winter is intensely depressing.  This year has been especially depressing with all the farking snow and the dearth of sunlight (even more than normal) these past few weeks.  I need to schedule myself some unscheduled just plain fart off time to do whatever, whenever.  I say it but I am really crappy at actually doing it- a planned hiatus as it were.  I would ideally like to take a week or so and just disappear but that is not really feasible because I really don’t want to leave the dogs alone with Jerry that long. 

Even an afternoon of complete oblivion to the world time would be helpful- turn off the freaking phone, TV and the rest of the distractions of life and just sit down and shut up. 

Of course some good old fashioned night-driving would be good for clearing the head and making way for restoration of the soul.  I don’t know why I feel closer to God when I drive alone at night but I just do.  There is something spiritual about the unplanned, unstructured night-drive. 

From the 13%, a catty observation: if you have a manual transmission you  can always push in the clutch and coast.  Story of my freaking life.  As I said before only 13 % of American drivers prefer manual transmissions -which makes me wonder why the other 87% haven’t realized what they’re missing.

Ok.  I didn’t think I would end up doing it, but the new HK Yaris is awesome.  NICE….  The only (very minor) complaint I have is that for some reason there’s no trunk release on the clickie which is sort of weird, but other than that I am delighted.  Jerry was sort of pissy about me having to take a bit of a hit on the trade in, but the incentives covered most of that.  I knew I would take a hit and in my mind it was better to do it before the other car depreciates even more.  The new one has the power features as well as side airbags and ABS that the other one didn’t have so that was really more of a selling point than anything else.

It amazes me the kinds of really gross advertising one sees on TV and hears on the radio these days.  There’s a radio commercial where some chick informs everyone that “size does matter” (and in a rather graphic way) as she’s hawking some kind of male enhancement nostrum.  Then on TV you get to see- even during prime time- commercials about men going to have the “Viagra talk” with their doctor, commercials about a lotion for “feminine itch,” another commercial for guys who have a hard time going pee, ad nauseam.  There is even an infomercial (granted I have only seen this one at 3 or 4 AM, but still) for old geezers to have Medicare pay for what looks to me to be a pecker pump.  No wonder Medicare is going broke, if they’re paying for 70 year old dudes to get boners.  Nasty.  There’s a reason why old geezers can’t get it up anymore.  Nature knows best.

Back in the day the worst commercial on TV was the Prep-H commercial.  Of course as kids we had no idea what the flying freak a hemorrhoidal flare-up was.  When the “Tucks” commercial came out we had no idea why someone was putting out a match with a moistened circular pad.  That seemed like quite a strange thing to do- light a match and then put it out with a wet piece of cotton.   Maybe this was why Dad used to send me over to the Revco to get his Prep-H for him.  I didn’t know what it was for, and I especially didn’t know that it was intended to be applied to a certain part of the nether region.  Had I known then what hemorrhoids are, or where Prep-H is applied I may have had some qualms about buying it, but knowing me probably not too much.  Ignorance may not have been bliss, but it saved Dad the indignity of shouting out , “I have a flaming case of  ‘roids!”  to the three or four other people shuffling about in the Revco.  As for me I really didn’t give a rat’s ass who saw me buy anything- or who thought I had a flaming case of ‘roids- as long as it didn’t involve Dad finding out where I bought cigarettes.  That would have hit me where I lived for sure.

I also found the commercials where they poured what appeared to be blue washer solvent on diapers and/or maxi pads to be most hilarious.  We knew what really landed in the diapers and in the maxi pads, but perhaps showing real green baby shit with pennies and pieces of corn in it and really gnarly bright red blood clots was just too graphic for the ’80’s audience.   Then again, the ’80’s did give us some of the bloodiest, goriest slasher movies in history.  A little realism in the commercials probably wouldn’t be any worse than a feminine itch product commercial coming on while I’m trying to eat dinner.  I really don’t want to think about strange women’s  itchy coochies when I’m shoveling down some mashed potatoes, alright?

I figure if you are going to get gross with commercials why not go for the shock effect?  Make it memorable.  Make some old bitty lose her lunch thinking about all those geezers out there with their pecker pumps and Viagra scripts.  It scares me.

Certain disclaimers tend to worry me.  I may have grown up in a mildly dysfunctional home, but shitting on the floor was never an option.   If anything the rules we had to abide by as kids (upon penalty of a good  backhanding) were stricter than the world at large.  You were expected to leave the public  bathroom cleaner than you found it which is easy to do these days because most public bathrooms are filthy.   It makes you wonder if the greater population has had any kind of social training.  Perhaps today it would hurt little Finster’s self esteem to be expected to shit in a toilet, who knows?

The Hello Kitty Yaris is back in one piece and looks beautiful.  Jerry still wants me to trade it in which I am still rather ambivalent about.  We will see what the salesman can do and if he is really serious about getting me in a 2010 with the power package.  Yes I would like power locks and windows and the clickie but otherwise I am quite happy to have my car back.  It feels good to drive a manual transmission car again.

Wednesday I had to make my yearly excursion to the ophthalmologist.  They took some pics of my retinas with some funky machine and assured me I don’t have glaucoma or anything else funky going on with my eyes- other than being extremely nearsighted which I was already quite aware of.

There may be something not quite right about making myopia a fashion statement, but I finally broke down and got two new pairs of glasses- one pair of prescription sunglasses and one regular clear pair.  Jerry has not noticed yet even though I’ve been wearing the new regular ones for three days now.  It proves my theory that men do not look at women from the neck up.  Jerry I think only looks at me when I’m bringing him something he wants.

I’ve pretty much given up on wearing contacts for two reasons- one, they are too expensive, and two,  I can’t see worth a shit close up with them any more.  With glasses I can just take them off when I do close up work.  Glasses aren’t quite as hideous as they were back in the day.  If you look at me from the side at just the right angle you can see how thick the lenses are, but the frames actually look pretty cool.  So what.  I can see better with them and don’t have to deal with contacts drying out or gucking up.

Steve-o is hell bent on driving that damned Mitsubishi he has been trying to put together since July.  I really wish that he would be practical and sell that codgered up piece of shit, sell the Integra too, and buy something like a nice, conservative four door Corolla that on the outside is cop-resistant.  Nobody is going to target a little old four door Corolla or suspect a young kid is driving it.   Then he can get all kinds of TRD  goodies for the engine and suspension to make it more fun.  But he thinks he has to look cool.   I think it is more cool to look innocuous on the outside and run like a bat out of hell, (this is what I did with my VW Rabbits back in the day) but that may just be me.

I am curious to see if I really can get into the 2010 for the same money.  I doubt it, but who knows?

If the stupid people did, by some miracle, shut up, this world would be an eerily quiet place.

So much for global warming, which in my opinion is a flawed theory based on way too little evidence,  hyped up by liberal politicians and the media for extortion and political gain.  I can see the three foot snowdrifts of global warming right out the window.  I’ve not seen this much snow in Central Ohio since 1978- when all the pundits, scientists and pseudo-scientists were claiming it was the beginning of a new ice age.  So far I have been able to get the car out of the driveway so I guess it’s not that horrible.  Besides, what do people in God-forsaken snow covered places like Buffalo or Minneapolis do all winter?   Winter in Central Ohio- where it usually rains more than snows- sucks bad enough without all this snow.  I just hope it melts slowly so as not to flood this entire flat former swamp.

I am sure the plow drivers and others who gain monetarily in times of extreme snow are starting to feel a bit like Sisyphus too- as soon as you get something done you come back to more of the same and then some tomorrow.   Just keep on rolling that big old stone up that steep, steep hill.  If nothing else all that lugging must have done wonders for his glutes.

Nothing like a guy with nice buns. 

I am not generally a fan of fried meat, but Jerry adores fried chicken and related greasy goodies.  I fried up the rabbit I got at the meat market Saturday.  I prefer rabbit baked or boiled up with noodles or dumplings (I have no qualms about eating most “game” meat- and these rabbits were farm-raised, which are even better than ones someone shoots out in the field.)  If he takes the extra pieces to work I doubt if the other guys will go snacking once they see the pieces don’t resemble any chicken they’ve ever had. 

I am almost afraid to find out where the boys are with my car.  I want it back but not until it’s as it should be.  The rental car runs out Friday and I have a bad feeling it won’t be ready by then.  I guess then I just commandeer Jerry’s new truck- the 2010 Tacoma is choice. 

Speaking of choice I had opportunity to watch a hilarious flick- or at least parts of it on Comedy Central the other night when I couldn’t sleep.  I’d seen the first Clerks movie and it was pretty funny, but “Clerks 2” was a riot.  It is not for the prudy or the politically correct. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2DxyAGzGxM “Porch Monkeys”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX01Lna0OI8 “Pillow Pants”

I admit I have a twisted sense of humor but I was just about spraying iced tea across the room when Randall goes into the story of his grandmother calling him a porch monkey.  I know my grandmother and especially my great-grandmother used that term as well as many others- not just racial terms but all kinds of creative and downright vulgar insults.  I remember Dad warning us not to repeat everything we hear.  I also remember Dad telling me not to look at the life-size tacky nudie posters his body-tech buddies had plastered everywhere in their home shops too.  Gross.  I am glad the auto body supply houses don’t give out nudie posters and calendars anymore, and that’s not because I’m a prude. I have nothing against guys looking at nudes, it’s just that nude women don’t do anything for me. 

I would rather leave such things to their imaginations.

I will say up front that G.W. Bush was not my favorite American president (I would have to put Reagan and a few others ahead of him) but comparing Bush to Obama, I would take Bush any day.  At least Bush was honest, Christian, pro-life, and anti-terrorist.  Obama, on the other hand, is a pathological liar,  the origins of his religion, whatever it is, are specious at best- but if he’s been getting it from the “Rev.” Wright it sure is not Christian, we all know he is anti-life, and I’m convinced by his socialist domestic agenda and limp wristed foreign policy that he is pro-terrorist.   It also deeply offends me that ANY American president would bow down to ANY foreign leader, let alone the leaders of countries that harbor terrorists.  Humility is fine where it is appropriate, but both false humility and inappropriate deference do nothing but  show your adversaries that you are simply a boot licking tool.   That’s a telling image, and I am sure Obama is quite familiar with the taste of boot leather.  Sold to the highest bidder.

Bush’s major fault was not being conservative enough.  Obama’s major faults include that he’s a liar and a socialist demagogue.  Hitler could talk a good game too.  The difference between Obama and Hitler is that at least Hitler did build the Autobahn.   Hitler pulled off one useful project. Obama’s major accomplishments thus far include paying back his Wall Street contributors and pandering to union lackeys and other government-teat feeding parasites.   Granted, on the plus side, Obama hasn’t succeeded in ridding the world of whiteys- yet.  He’s not done stealing our money yet. If you need proof that Obama hates white people and thinks the world would be better without them,  all you need to do is read his book,  “Dreams From My Father.”  It’s an eye opener.

I’m not saying Hitler was a good guy.  On the contrary, he had some very evil goals (the Autobahn excepted) and for the most part he achieved them at least for awhile.   This makes Hitler more effective than Obama- (at least Hitler did what he said he was going to do) and admittedly Hitler was far worse, in that Hitler was actually given free rein to pull of his evil agenda.  Obama (we hope) and his evil goals should fail, at least if there are still Americans out there with a rudimentary sense of reason and a measurable pulse. 

If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. 

Obama has accomplished one thing in his tenure as president so far.  He has succeeded in making  Jimmy Carter look good.

The bad thing about me and political thought is that the more I think about Obama and how utterly inept and just plain wrong the guy is, it really makes me mad.  My blood pressure is hard enough to keep under control. Then again, we get the leaders we deserve and this is the collective cost of people just not paying attention. 

Aside from politics, I am still waiting for my car to get done.  I did get a few more HK goodies – all weather mats, new license plate frames and new front seat covers- as well as I have my replacement protest stickers including a new “Kasich for Governor” sticker.

Steve-o finally made it back to Marion after his exam was delayed two days due to weather.  I hate winter and this winter has been particularly nasty.  There is still a foot of snow on the ground that isn’t going away anytime soon.  The dogs are doing their best to turn it all yellow, but that might take a little time.

Sometimes it torques me that Steve-o only seems to call when he wants me to do something for him or he wants money.  I guess now is a good a time as any to say NO.   NO you can’t have any more money, and if you want money you need to either get a job or sell some cars.  There, I said it.  The dude does have some pretty big balls sometimes.  I was doing good to have one car when I was in college let alone three, and I would never have even dreamed of trying to mooch money for smokes.

Normally a weekend in bed is a good thing but not this weekend.  I started feeling crappy Friday and thought if I went to bed early I would be OK.  Not so.  Saturday I felt worse and tried to sleep in between doing laundry, letting the dogs in and out, and listening to Jerry complain that I wasn’t doing anything.  In his eyes I am totally worthless unless I am actively doing something, even if I am three steps away from death.  It doesn’t matter that he is usually doing nothing unless he’s at work, unless it is swilling brews, making messes for me to clean up, or blowing money on gambling and lottery.  There is his standard for himself, and then his standard for me.  He is quite happy with himself so I will let it ride, but when I’m sick I really need the rest.  The pisser is I usually have a hell of a time actually getting any rest in between his incessant demands and pretty much constant whining.

When I’m asleep I’m not spending any money- but I’m not cooking, cleaning or running errands either.

Sunday morning I figured I would be quite fine.  Wrong again.   I really wanted to go to church- the church being a hospital for sinners, and frankly I’m the worst sinner I know- but there was no way I was going to try to go to church the way my head was pounding.  I did fix Jerry breakfast complete with bacon around 9AM, because it was better to just do it so he would shut up.  After that I went back to bed and at 11:30 Steve-o calls (ostensibly to wheedle more money out of me) and the pounding headache had become a piercing pain,  like someone had thrust an icepick through my right eye socket.  I don’t get nauseated easily but I was starting to feel really gross at that point.  So what do I do? Figure I feel crappy because I didn’t eat breakfast, so I fix some mac and cheese.  BAD CHOICE- but then hind sight is 20/20.

Less than half an hour later I was spewing slightly used mac and cheese like a freaking fountain.  Nasty, but I can think of worse things to barf up.  Thankfully I’d not decided on the Szechwan noodles or hot chili.  Usually I can’t barf at all no matter how loathfully sick I get so this was a bit surprising.  My head hurt so freaking bad I probably should have gone to the ER but today I seem to be, if not feeling great, I am not spewing puke and I am relatively headache free.  Since I am vertical and nominally functional today,  riding it out was probably the best choice. 

After my last experience in Mt. Carmel East’s ER (three hours’ worth of purgatorial torture waiting to be seen with a broken arm- should have just  taken some more Naproxen and called the orthopedist the next day anyway) I thought that suffering in my own bed was preferable to suffering in an uncomfy chair surrounded by unwashed strangers who likely carry far worse contagions than my own. 

For someone who has had plenty of exposure to medical facilities, I generally know when to go and when to not go.  Yesterday was not a day to go.  The ER on a Sunday is never a good place to be. I suspect this incident was one of those “let nature take its course” deals anyway, one of those times even when you do seek medical advice they can’t really do anything for you, so you’ve wasted your time and money.  I am quite capable of telling myself to go to bed, drink some broth and soda and hope tomorrow is a better day.

The White Death did actually come through Friday and Saturday- it wasn’t as bad as anticipated, but now the forecasters are calling for more of the same tonight and tomorrow.  This is a pisser.  I am not the greatest fan of  “winter wonderland” as it is- I don’t like traipsing through the slush and crud.  But this too shall pass.  Around the end of May.

I can’t keep my big yapper shut on this one, especially considering all the years that I’ve worked in and around the automotive industry.  The current (and sudden) government scrutiny of Toyota is a government payback for all the people who took their “Cash for Clunkers” (bad idea to begin with…) trades and bought Toyotas.  Toyota made out bigger than any other manufacturer from that deal, which was intended to be a sort of welfare arrangement for the “domestic” manufacturers – read UAW controlled- (who build more vehicles in Mexico, Canada and Brazil than they do in the US.)   When all is said and done the current hysteria over a rare defect in  certain Toyota accelerator pedal assemblies is going to be traceable right back to the UAW and their lackeys in Congress.   Of course CNN, et al, will white wash that and go right along with scaring the hell out of Toyota owners and trying to ruin their reputation over a VOLUNTARY  recall.  Remember that the “Big 3” do not do voluntary recalls.  They will only address a problem with vehicle design or function if it is widespread, blatantly obvious, and the government forces them to.  But the government owns two of the Big 3 now, so who is left for them to pick at?

There is no such thing as a 100% perfectly designed anything, let alone something as complex as a motor vehicle.  If vehicle safety were the prime concern of the government in all this why not require run-flat tires on every vehicle- a lot more people get killed in car crashes from tire failures than for an out of control throttle.  Then we could also go off on the way that most people do a piss-poor job of maintaining their cars which I would say is the number one reason for vehicles being unsafe .  But you get a few ambulance chasing (and Democrat contributing) lawyers going nuts over 1 or 2 catastrophic malfunctions out of millions and millions of cars.    The government could really give a rat’s ass less about vehicle safety.  They want to prop up the Big 3 in the hopes of remotely recouping some of the cash they dumped into them (with the exception of Ford) to bail them out, and this VOLUNTARY recall is giving them that excuse.  The idea here is if they make Toyotas look “less safe” then people will be more gullible and willing to buy UAW produced vehicles…but they aren’t going to come right out and say it.  It’s sickening.

Before I get too pissed off and too upset at how ignorant and gullible people can be,  (and pissed off at the idiots in Congress) I notice that the weather forecasters are still prognosticating that there will be White Death from above tomorrow and Saturday.   I will concede to this furor in one regard- I’m getting dog food tonight.  I was going to wait until tomorrow night but I don’t want to try to load up a boatload of dog food in a snow storm. 

Now that I have subscribed to the hype there will most likely not even be a snow storm at all which is fine with me.

I have to say I emphasize with Sisyphus- the dude in the Greek myth who had to roll a huge rock all the way up a huge hill every day as a punishment, then watch it roll right back down the hill.  Every day, the huge rock had to go up the huge hill.  Some days feel just like that, as if everything I did yesterday didn’t count.  That is a really sucky feeling.

I don’t see any road trips going on this weekend which again is fine with me- I can deal with the weather as long as I don’t have to go anywhere. 

Statistically speaking, more people die in February, and fewer people are born in February than in the other 11 months of the year.   Fewer February births don’t surprise me as there are two fewer days for said births to occur.  A child born in February (assuming a normal 40 week gestation) would have been conceived  in May.   Who bothers to get busy on the rare occasions when the weather’s nice?  Most people are thinking about doing the horizontal mambo in the fall and winter when there’s nothing better to do, especially for those who don’t have cable.  That’s why most people are born in the summer.  There’s not much good on cable in the late spring and summer.  Even so, the statistics that indicate there are more deaths in February, especially taking into consideration there are two fewer days to die, are what really intrigue me.   

My birthday is coming up in about three weeks.  I was born in February, probably because cable was unknown in 1968.  I feel sorry for my Dad.  Since Mom is Catholic and I’m their third and final child, I would naturally assume he hasn’t seen any action since May, 1968.  No wonder he’s cranky.  For those who aren’t aware, for Catholics,  sex is pretty much always a sin unless you are a.) doing the nasty with your spouse (also true for most Protestants), b.) doing the nasty with procreation as your goal, and c.) you’re NOT enjoying it.   It’s OK for Protestants to actually enjoy sex, as long as you’re married to the one you’re doing it with.

Suffice to say I am not Catholic.   I am currently (involuntarily…) celibate but that’s not because I have any objections to sex for the enjoyment of it.  I go without because the old man’s impotent.   I have no problem at all with  barrier method birth control (which is again a moot point at least for me as I had a hysterectomy) or pretty much any kind of erotic pursuits within marriage, and I have no problem at all with enjoying it.  The fact that I personally can’t enjoy such things really sucks but that’s just how it is.  

I wonder if Catholic women are allowed to do the dirty deed at all after menopause because there is no chance of procreation?   I guess you could cite the Biblical story of Abraham and Sarah (she was 90 years old and had a kid) as a technicality, but to me the very idea of dried up little old Catholic priests telling women how to repress their sexuality is just plain twisted.    Believe me, if I could, I would, and I would make it a point to enjoy it.

What a strange subject. 

This time of year in Ohio at least is depressing.  There’s very little sunlight, it always seems to be overcast, dark and cold, the holidays are over, and springtime (what passes for springtime here anyway,) won’t be on the horizon for at least another month or probably two.   It doesn’t usually get warm around here until the end of May- then it goes from 40 degree high temperatures to 80’s and 90’s almost overnight. 

I don’t like going out after dark, so I don’t do a whole lot other than go to work in the winter.  I do what I deem to be essential household chores at home but not much else.  The cold doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the dark.  In fact the cold is a Godsend when I am dealing with these hot flashes- I’ve been known to go outside and stand in the freezing cold to get some relief,  but it’s the dark that makes it so nasty.  The rain and other assorted precipitation that seems endless and inevitable in winter doesn’t help either.  In fact if the weather forecasts are correct (and that’s a long shot two days out) we are in for another blast of the Great White Death this weekend.  At least if there is six inches of snow on the ground I have another good excuse to stay inside and watch TruTV and play games on the DS.

I eagerly await the beginning of Daylight Savings Time.  It might actually be light out for a bit after I get off work again then. 

I never could figure out why people wait to bug me until a.) I am in the crapper, or b.) I’m at lunch.  But if I ignore the pesky situation until after lunch  it inevitably becomes a disaster.  That’s depressing too.  Sometimes it takes every ounce of restraint I have to keep from throttling people for being stupid and/or having crappy timing. 

Perhaps the real pisser regarding this time of year is that there’s really not much to look forward to.  Just more bland, damp, dark winter.  

I have to wonder at times what the thought process was behind a number of 80’s hairstyles.  I tried the big hair thing but with my bone-straight and then mousy-brown thick hair- good freaking luck.  Not even spiral perms and vast quantities of AquaNet could pull it off very well as the world’s worst prom picture can attest.

So when my hair turned grey I chopped it off and dyed it black.  Hard to believe that’s been about 15 years now.

It’s a shame hats aren’t more in vogue.  I have a lot of hats and I enjoy wearing them.  But then again I generally don’t give a rat’s ass about other people consider to be fashionable.  If I like it I wear it and if anyone wants to comment on it I say tough titty.  Life is too short to be boring like everyone else.  I may be boring, but I want to be uniquely boring- in a defiant “bite me” sort of way.  I enjoy being a bit controversial and on the edge, especially where I know there will be bleeding heart types and liberal wieners.  If I were ashamed of my beliefs and views I’d change them. I’m not so I won’t, and I don’t hide what I believe either.

The older I get the easier it is to be eccentric and get away with it.  Now I know how my grandma used to wander through the malls making all sorts of downright shocking (and loud) commentary with no one uttering a word.

There is a time for tact and decorum, yes, but the political correctness movement has made too many people afraid to point out the obvious.

We have become afraid to spank miscreant children- and they know all they have to do to get their parents in deep shit is to allege any form of  “abuse.”  (“Abuse” meaning such terrible things as denying them a big screen TV in their room or not letting their 12 year old sleep over party include a “Jackass” film festival.)

We have become afraid to call out those who would threaten this country and hide behind freedom of religion to commit terrorism.  Your freedom of religion ends when your religion calls for you to kill me because I do not subscribe to your religion.

We have become afraid to call a slacker a slacker and to require those who request government assistance to do a few basic things to better themselves such as:   stay off drugs and alcohol, work to acquire job skills, and refrain from breeding while on the public dime.

We have not gained the courage to look beyond a person’s color or nationality or gender and simply say, “I will hire the best person for the job.”

The lessons we humans seem to learn the best are those taught in the School of the Burned Hand.  You can tell a child the stove is hot until you’re blue in the face but until he puts his hand on the hot burner he generally doesn’t get it.   Apparently the people out there who subscribe to all these ridiculous ideas haven’t gotten burned yet- but it is only a matter of time.

I really try to avoid Kroger’s on Welfare Day.  I know people on food stamps have to go to the store too, but it seems they all show up on the first of the month.  Had I remembered that, I would have dragged my sorry carcass out of bed and gotten to Kroger’s on Sunday, even though I had promised myself an entire weekend in bed so I could lick my wounds from the previous week.   That is a saga in and of itself.  Suffice to say I will be weeks without my car and there is a certain sort of irony that I will be driving a black VW with North Carolina plates much longer than I truly care to.

Anyway, one way to make the trip to Kroger’s a bit more bearable is to play some good tunes (loud, to drown out the lame stuff they play in the store) so I had my selection of Metallica MP3’s going on.  This was well and good until I get to the check out and there is this obnoxious little brat- five or six, and definitely old enough to know how to behave in public,  in line ahead of me.  He was screeching and kicking his mother in the shins (something I would have handily backhanded my own offspring for doing, had he ever even thought to have the balls to act like that in public) which was bad enough.  But when I can hear him screeching over James Hetfield, the rest of Metallica, and the San Francisco Symphony performing “Battery,” this is over the top.  It took all my restraint to keep my mouth shut, and to keep my hands from throttling the little bastard.

It’s not that I particularly hate children.  I am mildly misanthropic at best- especially in Kroger’s on Welfare Day, when it seems someone’s fat ass is always square in front of the one item I need to grab- but I have a really dark disdain of kids who behave like savages in public.  Whenever I see little miscreants flailing down the frozen food section wailing because Mom won’t buy the ice-cream treats, or I am treated to a whining diatribe  such as, “I WANNA CANDYYYYYYY!!!!” in the checkout lane,  I seriously question the prevailing attitude that it is bad to beat a miscreant child half-way across K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Kroger, etc.  to enforce behavioral norms.   Sometimes the only way to get through to their minds is to warm up their behinds from time to time.

I don’t condone child abuse, but there are times when the little ones need a little corporal punishment.  This kid needed a trip to the ladies’ and a thorough hiney swatting.  I am sure most of the people in the store would secretly agree with me, except maybe a few whiny bleeding hearts who don’t have kids but do have Children’s Services on speed-dial in case some poor child is at risk of having his little self-esteem tarnished.

I grew up with a good Catholic mother.  She beat us whether we needed it or not, especially in church.   There was no nursery in church.  You did the Catholic calesthenics along with everyone else under fear of a good pounding.  

Of course back in the 70’s maintaining strict discipline was considered normal.  If your kids were even the least bit out of line you were expected to backhand them before someone else did it for you.   Kids had the fear in them,  and rightfully so most of the time,  in my humble opinion.  I can see the potential for abuse here, but people didn’t have to put up with screaming banchees rolling on the floor in Wal-Mart or be treated to a toddler sitting in its mother’s cart throwing handfuls of dog food down the aisles.  I won’t say the regular beatings made me turn out better or even “normal” but at least I do know how to act in public.  

To change the subject- which I do all the time- this is what happened to the illustrious Hello Kitty Yaris:

This sucks.  Not to mention it’s an endeavor just to get a week’s worth of groceries in the VW.  As far as the VW, I like the traction control and the butt warmers in the seats.  If it had a 5-speed it would be a fun car.

I am one of the 13%- 13% of American drivers prefer manual transmissions.  I miss my car mostly because it is a 5 speed, and I have more than ample room in the trunk for groceries and other assorted BS.  However I am grateful I got the VW- when I went to pick up my rental all the other cars were Kias and that would be hard to take when one is used to driving a Toyota all the time. 

Speaking of Toyota the whole accelerator issue is way overblown in my opinion.  It used to be fairly common on a number of cars that the throttle cable would stick or break- leaving the throttle wide open.  Shut it off (one click only so as not to lock the steering) and coast over to the side of the road.  It’s not rocket science.  I had to do it three or four times when the throttle cable on my 72 Super Beetle broke. 

Then again the average person knows absolutely nothing about cars other than they like to drive them, so go figure.  As far as I am concerned Toyota still builds the best cars out there, so I have no problem.  Yaris wasn’t one of the affected models anyway but I wouldn’t be too freaked if it was.  Shut it off and coast- in the rare event the accelerator malfunctions.  I would be more worried about blowing out a tire and spinning out- a much more likely failure, yet no one is screaming about the tire companies, eh?