I don’t doubt that Reagan is spinning in his grave.  It is a different world- better in some ways, especially in the realm of technology- I can’t say I miss carburetors or cassette tapes for example, and who isn’t enamored of the Internet- but on the whole the world is different as in worse.  Our government is becoming a sick joke, most of my paycheck is eaten up between taxes and insurance, and every nut job on the planet seems to want special rights and handouts at my expense.  It pisses me off to no end.

Maybe if I claimed to be a militant lesbian, or if I were in this country illegally I might get somewhere.   I could even end up on the Supreme Court!   It seems that being a straight white native born woman just makes me responsible for paying for all the screwballs who think they’re special.  Some people think they deserve special rights just for being deviants and perverts- and yes, historically, homosexuality has always been deemed a deviance and a perversion.  Go ahead and live that lifestyle if it floats your boat,  but don’t expect the rest of us to give you preferential treatment for it.  I really don’t care what people do behind closed doors, nor do I really wish to know, but I don’t think there should be special prizes for those who fail to acknowledge that God created human beings male and female for a reason.

I also hold a great deal of contempt for those who want to claim that their ethnic heritage or national origin entitles them to special treatment.   Every ethnic group has suffered servitude at the hands of another group at one time or another.  Get the fark over it already. As long as you aren’t currently a slave, quit your bitching and do something useful with yourself.  Learning English, pulling up your pants, and acquiring marketable skills are three ways of making a good start.    Even though most public schools are abysmal, a person with a little motivation and common sense can actually get an education in spite of them.

Illegals should be deported- period.  Illegal means “against the law.”  When one violates the law there is a penalty.  Get in this country illegally and get deported, how hard is that?  No one from terrorist supporting countries should be allowed in the country for any reason.  People who do wish to immigrate to this country should be only those who a.) speak, comprehend and write English fluently, b.) have NO criminal record of any kind, c.) have marketable employment skills and d.) would not be eligible for any sort of public assistance programs.  Arizona has the right idea.

There is a place for legitimate, legal immigration to this country, but Slick Willie’s plan back in the 90’s of moving a bunch of Somalians who don’t speak English, have no job skills, and have a nice little terrorism and crime syndicate going on back home was really bad for Central Ohio.  Was he on crack?  Just ask our friends on the near east side of Columbus who are dealing with all the drive-bys and drug activity.  Moving the thugs out of Mogadishu to Columbus just brought that chaos and turmoil here.  Hello??

On a lighter note Steve-o finally got roped in to going to the Prom.  Ha-ha.  I will have to bribe Spencer to get me pics of him in dress clothes.  Some day he will look at those old pictures like I do and then look around and wonder who these geezers are and what did they do with my friends in the pictures?

I’ll have to go to Spencer’s graduation which I think is either at the end of this month or the beginning of next.  I feel sort of sorry for the kid but Dad has taken him under his wing.  It amazes me how many of Steve-o’s friends’ parents don’t give a rat’s ass about their kids.  But then a lot of my friends’ parents didn’t either.

The French have a saying: “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose”- the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Lions’ Den is a chain of  “adult superstores” (read: porn shops) in Central Ohio.  If you want skin mags, adult films, or sex toys, this is the WalMart of porn.  This is the Morse Rd. Lions’ Den that I drive past every day so I couldn’t help but notice the irony of the promotion.  Spring cleaning in the dirty book store seems almost counter intuitive when you’re peddling smut, although they really don’t sell too many books any more except for a handful of skin mags.  Today’s sex fiends are into DVDs and interactive toys- as well as the S&M stuff and the furry costumes.  Perversion has changed with the times.

One might ask how do I know what sort of wares can be had at the superstore of porn.  I’ve been in there- though it wasn’t the Lions’ Den on Morse Rd- I went in the one somewhere off of I-71 on the way back from Cincinnati.  Steve-o wanted to check it out.  All I need is for the guys at work to see my car in the Lions’ Den parking lot.  It’s hard to keep a straight face (great, I used the word “hard” while speaking of an excursion into the porn emporium) as you scan the items for sale.  I sort of liked the little ice cube tray that makes ice cubes shaped like a “twig and berries” so to speak.  I would almost have bought that just to see the look on Mom’s face when she realized there were miniature peckers floating about in her iced tea.  The only problem with that is she is such a prude she would probably have a coronary.

Americans have such an ambivalent view of anything that pertains to sex.  Personally I don’t see anything wrong with married couples using sex toys and the like if that’s what floats your boat.  Now the movies are a whole different deal- that stuff is nasty and let’s face it there’s something sophomoric and puerile about watching total strangers in bizarre sex acts.

I don’t think there is anything noble about being a prude, nor do I think there is anything particularly ennobling about being a pervert.  A balance, and a sense of humor about it is a good thing.

Sometimes I wonder why I am surrounded by so many people who claim to be either agnostic (unconvinced that there is such a thing as God, but vaguely open to the idea should they be given sufficient proof) or flat out atheist. I know that some overzealous or downright false evangelists have turned many people away from the good news of Christ which is so very sad.  I don’t blame people for rejecting Christianity if all they see of it are the charlatans (Leroy Jenkins, Peter Popoff, and other prosperity preachers) and the crazy people.  I try not to be an obnoxious witness as there is a fine line between preaching God’s word and being taken as a holy roller.

I am a Christian (even though I am certainly not the best model of the Christian life- I have very far to go in the way of sanctification and my stubborn old nature fights it tooth and nail) and I have had life long struggles with theology and faith.  At one point in time I was almost agnostic in my views and behavior, at another I almost ended up joining a Southern Baptist church for their emphasis on Bible study but I was downright terrified by their eschatological views.  Knowing my luck the Rapture would happen and I would be taking a dump and be disqualified for partial nudity or I would be road raging and cussing someone out or doing some other sinful thing and because of that I would be Left Behind.   The Catholics more or less creeped me out with the praying to saints and endless worrying over whether or not I would die suddenly in a mortal sin.  Thankfully I ended up going to a Lutheran church in my teens- no praying to saints and no bizarre extrascriptural interpretations of the books of Daniel and/or Revelation.  I learned Christ alone, faith alone, Scripture alone- and those “Three Solas” are the basic foundation of my understanding of theology.  It’s Christ or nothing, as C.S. Lewis pointed out and Jesus Himself underscored in John 14:6.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Imagine growing up between a very observant old school Catholic mother and a born-again Bible believing Regular Baptist father and grandmother and it is a wonder I have any clue what to believe.  So I had to learn and discover – work out my salvation in fear and trembling like the apostle Paul spoke of – which, by the grace of God He enables me to do.   You can’t earn your way to Heaven and you can’t stand on your own good works which to me is good news- but what about the atheist or agnostic who has never come to the point that C.S. Lewis describes as realizing it’s Christ or nothing?  It’s the point where you take Jesus at His word, or you reject Him and substitute your own system.

I had to learn the hard way that my system didn’t work.  I was plagued with panic attacks. I was addicted to overwork. I was a binge drinker, a chain smoker, and I was not above sexual intrigues or just about anything else I could use to get my own way.  By the time I was 30 years old that lifestyle was killing me physically, emotionally and above all spiritually.  Either it was Christ or I would be nothing.  My own doctor predicted that barring a radical lifestyle change that I would be dead by age 35.

Jerry’s friend Bob is a hard core atheist.  He resists any attempt for anyone to talk to him directly regarding matters of faith, let alone to dare to suggest that there is an Almighty God and that apart from His Son Jesus there is nothing beyond the grave but the eternal torment of hell.  I am not much for the hellfire and brimstone evangelizing but Jesus Himself talked about hell more than anyone else in the Bible.  Hell is real and you don’t get out of hell by being “a nice guy.”  Human beings are intrinsically evil and we all fall short of God’s standards, which is why we need Christ.

I know that while there is life there is hope but Bob is most likely in the process of dying.  I pray for his physical healing even though I know he would be outraged to hear of it.  I pray even more that somehow, someway God will find a way through his hard heart and that he will accept the good news of salvation in Christ.

Sometimes the only way we have to preach the gospel is not through words but through our actions and care for someone, to be as Christ to them even though they don’t believe.  I don’t know what if anything God can do with me but He is more than welcome to try.

Speaking of screwing, you know you work in a high-crime neighborhood when the bail bondsmen have billboards.  You know it’s spring, and therefore drive-by shooting season has resumed, when our good friend Chuck Brown the bail bondsman has graced Morse Road with his graphic but effective ad:

If I’m going down, hopefully I will have the sentience of mind to remember our good friend Chuck Brown.  Better yet I would pray for the sentience of mind not to commit acts such as armed robbery, grand theft auto, drug trafficking, or capital murder, that may render me in need of the services Mr. Brown provides.  The billboard next to it was sponsored by a local church, telling fathers to take responsibility for their children.  Perhaps if more people paid attention to billboard #1 there would be far less need for billboard#2.  Many young offenders never had a father in the true sense of the word- and there is a world of difference between being merely a sperm donor and being a father to one’s children.

You would not see this billboard in a nice polite conservative Republican suburb by the way. There is a reason for that, namely that nice, polite, conservative Republicans tend not to engage in armed robbery, grand theft auto, drug trafficking or capital murder.  We generally are not into drive-bys, as we have been taught to solve our grievances by more civilized and less permanent means.  We are generally averse to taking other people’s cars to sell them to chop shops, and the only drugs we take are the ones our doctors prescribe.   Mr. Brown would not make much money off of us.

When you see ads like this you know you are in da ‘hood now.

I know I can use things like this to reinforce my misanthropic view.  I try not to be overly biased but it’s downright scary when the shop and rob  store next door gets robbed regularly and we get treated to SWAT and helicopters and K-9 units being deployed right across the parking lot.  It kills my faith in human nature and reinforces my deep disdain for Democrat politicians who think moving a bunch of violent foreigners into the city of Columbus was a good idea. T

Then again I have to agree with one teaching of John Calvin (no I am not a strict Calvinist in terms of theology, but Calvin had a lot of things right)- the total depravity of man.  Apart from God humanity is pure evil, no doubt about that.

I have absolutely no tolerance for children who misbehave in public.  I think my already nonexistent tolerance for the rantings of rugrats was pushed beyond its limits yesterday.  I had been suffering from a most nasty sinus infection topped off with stomach distress and Montezuma’s Revenge most of last week.  I had been consigned to bed all day Saturday and most of the day yesterday, so as I dragged my sorry carcass through Kroger’s the last thing I wanted to encounter were miscreant crumb-chompers. 

There were a little boy and little girl- I would say aged between 5 and 7 years (old enough to know how to behave in public, at least IMHO) prancing about and screaming for all they were worth all through the frozen foods in Kroger.  Combine this with still being halfways sick, and it’s crowded in the store to begin with being that it’s Welfare Day, (or more precisely the day after Welfare Day, but close enough) and I am  getting mildly agoraphobic (I don’t do crowds well) on top of just plain feeling crappy.  With each passing moment I was getting more and more pissed off that said children’s mother was nowhere to be seen, let alone actively retrieving and restraining them from their misbehavior.

Not that the 70’s were an idyllic time- but I would at that moment given anything to grab the little banchees and give them a fanny whacking worth screaming about.  I know my mother had done that with several of the neighborhood kids if she caught them misbehaving, then she would tell their mothers so they could continue the whacking at home.  Had I dared to act so improperly at that age my mother would have beat me to Kingdom Come long before my wailings would have reached the ears of bystanders.  Mom was a good Catholic mother- she wanted to make sure we got a good taste of the pangs of purgatory and the fires of hell right here on earth.  Back then there would have been no bleeding heart with Children’s Services number on speed dial.  There were no cell phones back then- and if there had been- the phone would have been used to call the child’s mother so she could give the child the beating he/she deserved for acting up in public, and another beating for having to be reprimanded by someone other than a parent or blood relative.

Of course today you dare not even give a verbal reprimand to a child not your own, and you have to be careful even with your own spawn lest they decide that you are “verbally abusing” them and damaging their gossamer-thin shell of self-esteem.  Then they tell the school counselors that they’re “abused” because you set boundaries on their behavior, and you end up in the principal’s office at the school trying to explain your methods of discipline to some bleeding heart psychologist who then gives you a lecture on positive parenting or some other line of crud.  Bullshit, I say.  Sometimes the only correction for the incorrigible is a fired-up fanny.

I still say keep the kids out of the store and let the dogs in.  My dogs know how to behave in public.  I wish that people with kids like that would be required to keep them on a leash so they didn’t disturb other people with their ranting and raving in the store.  They make leashes and harnesses for kids.  I know at times I had wanted to put Steve-o on one even though he knew his boundaries much better than the kids I encountered in Kroger’s.

Tires and testicles.  Looks like double trouble to me.  A man had to have come up with the truck nut craze.  If I subscribed to Freudian psychology (which for the most part I don’t) I would say guys who have to put balls on their trucks feel their own packages to be inadequate.  In my opinion it seems that guys who have to put balls on their trucks are more likely to keep their own balls in their wives’ purses.

How many women put coochie lips or boobs on their cars?  ‘Nuff said.

Jerry is down at the campground all weekend to help Bob.  I am grateful for the quiet and sanity especially after the incident with his truck.  I hope they all question him about the drunk bump.

If Jerry’s going to drink beer and act like an ass, I prefer him to be down there rather than pestering the hell out of me.  Upon leaving he mentioned taking bluegrass and country tapes.  I am glad not to have to endure his musical tastes as mean as that might sound.  He can get drunk to Willie Nelson all weekend, while I catch up on some much needed sleep and assorted recreational activities in peace.

I know Jerry feels bad because Bob has colon cancer and is facing surgery next week.  The pisser is that Jerry getting drunk is no help for Bob’s situation.  If Jerry wants to be a good friend perhaps staying sober and acting like an adult might be a better plan.

I should go to Cincinnati for my nephew’s birthday party Sunday but we shall see.  I am pretty worn out and fried.  It seems like it takes all my effort just to go to work and try to maintain.

I might also add, unwilling to produce documents to verify that he is indeed a native born citizen and therefore eligible to hold the office of President.  How arrogant can you get?  I have to show my driver’s license and sign all kinds of crap just to buy farking Claritin-D.  No, I am not buying Claritin-Ds because I’m running a meth lab.  I simply like breathing from time to time-as Borat might say, breathing is nice, but I still have to show my driver’s license and follow the rules if I want Claritin-Ds. Why does he think he’s above the rest of us plebes?  If you want to be President of the US, you should have the documentation to prove you are a natural born citizen.  If you aren’t able to prove that (or if you already know you were NOT born in this country) you are not eligible to run, let alone to be sworn in.  It’s in the Constitution, for those who might not be terribly familiar with that document.

Even Ted Kennedy pretended to be sorry when they found Mary Jo dead in his submerged Oldsmobile.   Even Teddy showed up with a neck brace and all, trying to feign innocence while he and everyone else knew he was guilty as hell.  Obama doesn’t even pretend to be remorseful or even willing to admit when he’s wrong.  He simply defies the law with a seething contempt, as if anyone would dare to thwart his almighty will.   This dude is bad news and the sooner he is out of office the better.

Ok, few things are guaranteed to piss me off more than Obama and his pomposity, but I have been too focused on politics lately.  So I decided to  troll through my vast collection of MP3’s to arrange some handy playlists for my new MP3 player (the 8GB Sansa Fuze.) So far I am delighted with it as it is more user friendly and has more storage than the old one.  Of course my music collection is rather dated- most of it is 1985 or older- and the artists range from Carly Simon to Metallica. I do have a few newer items but not too many.  I think Journey’s Revelation is the newest material I have (2008) so I am not entirely relegated to the 80’s.

Few things seem more disjointed to me than going from Metallica to Handel’s Messiah but it’s all on there and if I hit random I get some strange combos.

I need another road trip.  I also need to go get that wade pool from Kathy.  See what I mean about disjointed thoughts?

Maybe it’s mean of me to rub it in, but how damned dumb can you get?  I still can’t believe Jerry was dumb enough to attempt to wash his truck when he was too drunk to speak intelligibly.  Next time I go to my church group I will have to confiscate his keys.

There used to be a long standing joke with the guys at the Buick dealers. 

 “How did the Century get its name?” 

“It’s the average age of the drivers. ”

The sad thing about most jokes is that they are based on a grain of truth.  It seems every time I go up to Marion I see them everywhere- little old white-haired geezers driving Buick Centurys.  I know, geezers tend to like Camrys too, but then again so do cops.  I remember dealing with a lot of cops.  Among those cops who prefer Toyotas, it’s either Camrys or 4Runners. Go figure.

You know you’re in trouble when you go into a car dealership and there’s a defibrillator in the service waiting area.  Either the clientele is antique or the rates are outrageous, or maybe it’s how the geezers react to outrageous repair bills.  Then again, when you’re 85 you really don’t have much better to do than to languish in the Buick dealer’s customer lounge, swilling their day-old coffee and falling asleep in the plastic chairs while Oprah is blaring on the cheap 13 inch TV that is hanging from the wall.   It would stand to reason that the Grim Reaper will will find you regardless if you are falling asleep to Oprah at home, or at Smilin’ Bob’s Buick.   The only difference is that if you drop dead at the Buick dealer it makes them look bad, sort of like the other day when I saw an EMS truck parked in front of Wendy’s.  EMS drivers have to eat sometime, don’t they?  Or maybe some unfortunate geezer’s number came up just as they were diving in to a steaming cup of Wendy’s chili.  Either way no one really wants to equate Wendy’s with medical emergencies that require the EMS any more than the Buick dealers want anyone to equate sudden death with waiting in their service department.   I know when my number’s up I really hope to be asleep in my own bed.  The sad part is that I will probably die alone and no one will find me until my carcass has been stripped by my dogs and cats, but that’s a whole other subject.

I don’t believe in hanging around waiting for my car to get fixed.  I have no patience for that noise.  I’d rather drop it off and let them notify me when it’s done and when I can come and get it.  When I was a service director I never liked having customers wait on cars for a number of reasons.  First of all having someone wandering about waiting puts pressure on the tech to fix it fast which means he might not address possible upsell opportunities.  This is probably the best reason to put the customer in a rental car or give him/her a ride to work.  If the tech has it all day he is more likely to be more thorough in his assessment of possible upsells and the customer is more likely to approve upsells which means no rescheduling.  Why not get everything done while the car’s already on the rack?   I  also don’t have to worry about babysitting that person either as they troll about the showroom or worse, they come back to the shop to pester advisors or techs.  The worst thing a customer can do is keep coming back to the advisor every ten minutes asking, “is it done yet?”  Believe me, we want you out of that waiting room, sweetheart, and we will be the first to come and get you when it’s ready to go. 

I’m glad I don’t work in dealerships anymore.  There were fun things about it but I freely admit I can’t handle the stress.  I do miss the fact that I could get my car detailed for free and maintenance services done for the cost of parts and a 12 pack of brews though.  Techs are generally easily bribed with malt beverages. 

Which brings me back to Jerry’s dumb ass incident.  I wonder how much this little faux pas is going to cost him?  I still can’t believe he had the balls to blame me ostensibly because I wasn’t there to protect him from himself.   As if I can?  When he’s wasted the Drunk and Stupid has an evil life of its own.  You can’t tell him shit.  I was home when (in a booze fueled blaze of stupidity) he decided it was a good idea to start a fire in the fireplace with gasoline.  I refused to “help” him by getting the gas can for him so he did it himself. 

I know we all have our frailties- I could write a rather tawdry tome if I were to recall every stupid thing I’ve ever done, but come on.  53 going on two.  He might have gained himself some attention but I guarantee it’s not the kind of attention he wants!

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.  If I knew to who I should attribute this pithy tidbit of wisdom I would, but since I don’t, I will simply acknowledge its simple truth and relevance. This being said, I know in the scheme of things my opinion has the impact and the gravitas of a popcorn fart.  This isn’t false humility, it’s reality.  I care what I think, but I’m probably the only one who does.

To say that I despise the corruption, graft and just plain wrong direction of the current government from the naked emperor on down is an understatement.  It seems so painfully obvious to me that Obama and company are in it simply for their own personal powergrabs- to undermine private industry and demonize it so that the government can take  over.  Socialism by farce is nothing new under the sun.  If I recall correctly, Adolf Hitler did the same thing.  

Whenever I hear of His Arrogance (Obama) wanting to lay down even more punitive taxation on private industry to fund his faux utopian programs,  I keep coming back to the state provision of  free bread and circuses that contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire. The resources and wealth of the Empire were squandered in appeasing and entertaining the masses rather than providing for an infrastructure and a common defense.  Sound familiar?  Road-building and maintaining a military are the primary reasons for the existence of the federal government according to the Constitution.  The last time I checked, there was nothing in the Constitution that either provided for the establishment of a nanny state, or stated that the nanny state has to pay for some 70 year old impotent geezer to get a free pecker pump- but they do!

While Obama is playing footsie with dictators (behind closed doors and conveniently beyond the camera’s eye to boot) and sucking up to Muslim despots, our national defense languishes.  Soldiers in combat have to abide by ridiculous rules of engagement that give foreign terrorists more rights and advantages than the soldiers themselves.   Since when does the tail wag the dog?  Civil trials for terrorists who are NOT American citizens and whose nations of origin reject even the  humanitarian provisions of the Geneva Convention?  I think NOT. 

American citizens who were supposedly born under the protection of the Constitution end up having their rights usurped by a wanna be dictator in the Oval office and a Congress who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything other than sucking up to the Obamanation himself and therefore preserving their own hides.   (until November that is, unless the Democrats can dig up enough dead people to vote them back in.)

Yes, this stuff pisses me off to no end.  I don’t hold Republicans blameless- they bent over and played the PC card to the wacked out left’s advantage, but there could be a blessing in disguise if enough people wake up.  If enough people demand to keep what they earn, if enough people have the courage to take care of themselves instead of expecting the government to be the all-knowing, all-powerful nanny, then perhaps we might get our country back.

So how many three year olds are still breast feeding?  Does the Ohio Department of Health think that I should still be breast feeding my almost 19 year old?  I hope not because he does seem to have a pathological preoccupation with boobs to begin with.

That would be more than a little creepy.  If they are old enough to ask for it they are old enough to eat a McDouble like everyone else.

I understand all too well the advantages of breast feeding an infant– if you’re poor, but not poor enough to have the government give you baby formula for free, breast feeding is the only way to go, at least until the kid gets teeth and can eat normal food like everyone else.  This seemed to work just fine for Steve-o for the first four months or so. (Not three years or however old the toddler is in the picture on the original billboard!)  It amazes me that other mammals seem to get the whole “these teats are here for nursing” bit just fine, but we humans seem to have a problem with it.  Animals also know when it’s time to wean.  Dogs cut off their pups as soon as they get teeth.  Makes sense to me.

Either new mothers are wigged out with the idea of a tiny human hanging off their nipple for fifteen minutes or so every other hour for four to six months, or they don’t make milk for whatever reason, or they just plain don’t want to bother.  For the life of me I can’t understand failing to breast feed your newborn if you are capable, even if your only goal in it is to save a ton of money.   Formula is incredibly expensive for those of us who have to actually pay cash for it.   Supposedly the kid gets sick less often which helps avoid constant doctor visits.   Even if you have a hard time abiding having the kid hanging on you all the time you can get a (n) (electric) breast pump and just milk yourself (doesn’t that sound creepy.. but it’s really not that bad) so someone else can feed the kid later.   I can say Steve-o was healthier than most infants although I don’t know if breast feeding was the sole reason for that.   If you actually just have the kid latch on and go at it, it also saves the hassle of sterilizing bottles and nipples.     You can breast feed discretely if you need to- just toss a blanket over and nobody sees anything.  It’s not rocket science, because newborns have the same rooting reflex that puppies, kittens, piglets, etc. have.  A newborn will figure out what to do with the teat- namely put it in his mouth and chew on it…apparently the male of the species never grows out of that reflex, but I digress.

It is a good thing that the government is encouraging breast feeding- it saves the taxpayers money after all and it’s a lot healthier for infants as long as their moms stay off crack and all that.  One disadvantage of breast feeding is that you do have to eat with some regard to health and you can’t be drunk and high the whole time.

I like that.