Hmmm….
The New York Times, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23263742/?GT1=10856, is running an expose on the premise that Sen John McCain was friendly with a lobbyist. It takes great pains to point out that while some of his staff have said there was no illicit romantic affair, they wanted to make sure that one didn’t happen. And nothing happened either, but they just wanted to make sure the public didn’t get the wrong idea. Mind you this was all eight years ago.
Elsewhere we find Sen Barrack Obama completing a sweetheart deal in 2005 with the now indicted Tony Rezko to buy his multi-million dollar house. There was no appearance of impropriety in the deal, there was actual impropriety. For what ever reason, The Trib is the only real media outlet that is covering this saga in depth, http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-rezko-arrested_webjan29,0,6857272.story.
Which one is the bigger story, the one about McCain not having an affair but gasp, looking like he might have an affair or the one about Obama doing a real estate deal with a now indicted lobbyist?
Yep, I guess we know the answer!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Radio Obama
If I hear one more Obama radio spot……
Ya know the one, the one with “CEO’s who earn more in 10 minutes than the average worker earns in 1 year. Yep, that one!
Let’s do the math shall we:
$48,201 Average annual salary per US Census Bureau 2006
x 6 1 hour divided by 10 minutes
x 2,080 Annual hours worked
$601,548,000 Obama’s mythical CEO Salary
Exactly how many corporate CEO’s are earning this? Pretty much none. Look at the Fortune or Forbes data. To be sure, some CEO’s have cashed out stock options and retirement benefits that are mind-boggling but these folks are an exception rather than the rule. By the same token I’ve known some individuals who worked in R&D at a local consumer products company (guess who, they are out of Texas but used to be headquartered here until taxes made them flee south) who retired with about $2 million between 401(k) plans and other retirement money. They’ve worked hard for a 30+ year career and became successful. Want to nail them, too?
This Obama ad is pandering to the “stick it to the rich” segment and the “all corporations are evil” mentality.
It is going to be interesting to say the least.
Ya know the one, the one with “CEO’s who earn more in 10 minutes than the average worker earns in 1 year. Yep, that one!
Let’s do the math shall we:
$48,201 Average annual salary per US Census Bureau 2006
x 6 1 hour divided by 10 minutes
x 2,080 Annual hours worked
$601,548,000 Obama’s mythical CEO Salary
Exactly how many corporate CEO’s are earning this? Pretty much none. Look at the Fortune or Forbes data. To be sure, some CEO’s have cashed out stock options and retirement benefits that are mind-boggling but these folks are an exception rather than the rule. By the same token I’ve known some individuals who worked in R&D at a local consumer products company (guess who, they are out of Texas but used to be headquartered here until taxes made them flee south) who retired with about $2 million between 401(k) plans and other retirement money. They’ve worked hard for a 30+ year career and became successful. Want to nail them, too?
This Obama ad is pandering to the “stick it to the rich” segment and the “all corporations are evil” mentality.
It is going to be interesting to say the least.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Dick Clark
A post about Dick Clark? You've got to be kidding, right?
Mrs Glib Replies and me-self are at that age where New Years Eve is spent watching TV with a bottle of cold duck and a bag of beer nuts wondering and worrying where/what the little Glib Repliers are doing. That said, we happened upon Dick Clark tonight.
If you are a certain age you will remember Dick Clark and American Bandstand as something you watched on TV but didn't want to admit it to your friends. Kind of like Tony Palmeri watching Bill O'Reilly. We know it happens but it is best not talked about.
Anyway, let me be the first to congratulate him on coming back. He is a prime example, and this had been noted in the media extensively, of an aphasic stroke survivor. That is to say the stroke largely affected his ability to speak but fortunately, not much else.
I suspect there will be a few in the entertainment media who will say, as a result of his broadcast, that he should've packed it in. Screw 'em I say! Courage to come New Years TV? Ya, you betcha! You could see and hear him warm up and his delivery get better during his broadcast.
The broadcast media should be more representative of the general population and having Dick Clark on TV, during one of the most watched shows, with his aphasia is step towards that goal.
Mrs Glib Replies and me-self are at that age where New Years Eve is spent watching TV with a bottle of cold duck and a bag of beer nuts wondering and worrying where/what the little Glib Repliers are doing. That said, we happened upon Dick Clark tonight.
If you are a certain age you will remember Dick Clark and American Bandstand as something you watched on TV but didn't want to admit it to your friends. Kind of like Tony Palmeri watching Bill O'Reilly. We know it happens but it is best not talked about.
Anyway, let me be the first to congratulate him on coming back. He is a prime example, and this had been noted in the media extensively, of an aphasic stroke survivor. That is to say the stroke largely affected his ability to speak but fortunately, not much else.
I suspect there will be a few in the entertainment media who will say, as a result of his broadcast, that he should've packed it in. Screw 'em I say! Courage to come New Years TV? Ya, you betcha! You could see and hear him warm up and his delivery get better during his broadcast.
The broadcast media should be more representative of the general population and having Dick Clark on TV, during one of the most watched shows, with his aphasia is step towards that goal.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Going Home
I was able to visit my hometown over Christmas. While there, I was able to get in touch with a good friend from my high school and undergrad days. We hadn’t connected in about 8 years.
It was a bittersweet visit with him. As a young adult, the world was waiting for him. A natural and gifted athlete, he was out-going and made friends easily. He had a very marketable undergrad degree from a Big Ten School and he landed an internship that he parlayed into a great and lucrative job upon graduation. I was jealous of him then. I was still plugging away in school looking to become a social worker and he had this great job. As well, he had just gotten married and bought a house. He looked like a great success story and I used to second-guess my chosen educational and upcoming career path.
Fast-forward 20 years and boy oh boy how the times change.
He is on his third marriage now, run into some legal challenges for himself and he has stepchildren who are on a first name basis with the local DA. His once promising career evaporated years ago and he bounces around now in jobs that aren’t in any fashion related to his education, abilities or intelligence.
People making wrong choices, well, I’ve seen a ton of ‘em. I usually have a bit of que sera sera attitude when I see it professionally with colleagues or students. This one hits close to home and it makes me uncomfortable. I realize I shouldn’t be sad for him, or me either I might add. But, I still wonder what went wrong and wonder what could’ve been.
It was a bittersweet visit with him. As a young adult, the world was waiting for him. A natural and gifted athlete, he was out-going and made friends easily. He had a very marketable undergrad degree from a Big Ten School and he landed an internship that he parlayed into a great and lucrative job upon graduation. I was jealous of him then. I was still plugging away in school looking to become a social worker and he had this great job. As well, he had just gotten married and bought a house. He looked like a great success story and I used to second-guess my chosen educational and upcoming career path.
Fast-forward 20 years and boy oh boy how the times change.
He is on his third marriage now, run into some legal challenges for himself and he has stepchildren who are on a first name basis with the local DA. His once promising career evaporated years ago and he bounces around now in jobs that aren’t in any fashion related to his education, abilities or intelligence.
People making wrong choices, well, I’ve seen a ton of ‘em. I usually have a bit of que sera sera attitude when I see it professionally with colleagues or students. This one hits close to home and it makes me uncomfortable. I realize I shouldn’t be sad for him, or me either I might add. But, I still wonder what went wrong and wonder what could’ve been.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Home Schooled Students
Twas a few days after grades were turned and all through the campus not a professor stirred, not even the early tenure hopefuls.
My grades had been posted and several malt beverages had been toasted.
An what should appear at my door?
Was it Prancer, was it Dancer?
No!
It was that bore!
The one who was home schooled and taught by mom.
He had just found out his grade in my class had been a bomb.
This has never happened to me before, I've always done well.
I replied with a huff and a snort, I'm a teaching professional and not your mother.
I give credit where credit is due.
And unfortunately young man, the grade you've earned is true!
So away to the parking lot I did fly
And with a tip of my hat, I bade him good-bye!
(My sincerest apologies to the fine English faculty over in Radford!)
My grades had been posted and several malt beverages had been toasted.
An what should appear at my door?
Was it Prancer, was it Dancer?
No!
It was that bore!
The one who was home schooled and taught by mom.
He had just found out his grade in my class had been a bomb.
This has never happened to me before, I've always done well.
I replied with a huff and a snort, I'm a teaching professional and not your mother.
I give credit where credit is due.
And unfortunately young man, the grade you've earned is true!
So away to the parking lot I did fly
And with a tip of my hat, I bade him good-bye!
(My sincerest apologies to the fine English faculty over in Radford!)
Monday, November 19, 2007
Rob Kaiser of the Appleton Post-Crescent
At this level of teaching, most of us are authors. We author books and textbooks. We publish articles in our areas of scholarly endeavors and obviously have written a thesis or two. Very few of us, though, are writers.
True writers are artists. The blank page is their canvas and their words are brushstrokes that paint indelible images as vivid to the eye as if Renoir or Monet stood at the easel.
It is not often that I’ve come across a newspaper columnist who is, by my definition, a writer. The late Mike Royko, Bob Greene and humorist Dave Barry come to mind while Stew Rieckman, doesn’t. But to the list of the former I add Rob Kaiser from the Appleton Post-Crescent.
Read his Sunday front page column, http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007711180559
and try not to be moved. You can’t. His words paint an indelible picture. Those painted words draw you in. We smell, we see, and we feel the story. He is a writer and a very good one at that. I look forward to reading more of his work.
True writers are artists. The blank page is their canvas and their words are brushstrokes that paint indelible images as vivid to the eye as if Renoir or Monet stood at the easel.
It is not often that I’ve come across a newspaper columnist who is, by my definition, a writer. The late Mike Royko, Bob Greene and humorist Dave Barry come to mind while Stew Rieckman, doesn’t. But to the list of the former I add Rob Kaiser from the Appleton Post-Crescent.
Read his Sunday front page column, http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007711180559
and try not to be moved. You can’t. His words paint an indelible picture. Those painted words draw you in. We smell, we see, and we feel the story. He is a writer and a very good one at that. I look forward to reading more of his work.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Halloween!
I’m a simple guy, really I am. I enjoy simple things. Simple things are fun. Simple things like watching the Chicago Bears lose, fun! Another one of these simple things is Halloween. Candy, kids in costumes, the whole bit. Fun. Really.
My ire has been raised though by an apparent societal movement of wrecking Halloween for kids and for those simple folk such as me. This movement is coming from two schools of thought. Movement one comes from the very fundamentalist Christian folks who see Halloween as Satanic Rituals (ooh!) taking over the hearts and minds of our children. Newsflash one to these folks, giving a KitKat bar to an eight old year old dressed as Ninja Turtle is not going to convert anyone to a follower of ol’ Beelzebub. Newsflash two, Harry Potter is make-believe!
The second school of thought is directly opposite the bible-thumpers. We must stamp out Halloween because it is a Christian Holiday. It is that whole separation of church and state thing thus, public grade schools everywhere have FallFest and Pumpkin Days instead of ‘trick or treating’ and Halloween. Jesus was nailed to a cross, died and went to Heaven ……so kids can get those little tubes of Whopers (personal fav) and boxes of MilkDuds because they are dressed like Shrek? Yeah, right!
True, some of the origin of modern Halloween is rooted in Christian tradition but actually early Christianity co-opted many of the pagan and druid traditions of harvest celebrations. Those crazy druids were of course worshiping trees, bushes and sacrificing the occasional goat in the name of their religion during the harvest season and early Christians must have thought, there has got to be a better way and they of course came up with those little peanut chewy things wrapped in the orange and black wax paper (who eats those things, anyway?) as a way to spread their enlightened thinking.
Halloween is, or should be, a kid’s holiday. Ya hoo, free candy! Costumes! Pretend to be something you’re not (hmmm, are we talking presidential primaries or ‘trick or treating’).
If you don’t like Halloween, don’t participate. Keep your kids out of the costume contest at school, turn your porch light off and don’t hand out candy. Stay home and read your bible. Stay home and gnash your teeth about how only you can save the world from the horrors of the spread bite-size Snickers.
My ire has been raised though by an apparent societal movement of wrecking Halloween for kids and for those simple folk such as me. This movement is coming from two schools of thought. Movement one comes from the very fundamentalist Christian folks who see Halloween as Satanic Rituals (ooh!) taking over the hearts and minds of our children. Newsflash one to these folks, giving a KitKat bar to an eight old year old dressed as Ninja Turtle is not going to convert anyone to a follower of ol’ Beelzebub. Newsflash two, Harry Potter is make-believe!
The second school of thought is directly opposite the bible-thumpers. We must stamp out Halloween because it is a Christian Holiday. It is that whole separation of church and state thing thus, public grade schools everywhere have FallFest and Pumpkin Days instead of ‘trick or treating’ and Halloween. Jesus was nailed to a cross, died and went to Heaven ……so kids can get those little tubes of Whopers (personal fav) and boxes of MilkDuds because they are dressed like Shrek? Yeah, right!
True, some of the origin of modern Halloween is rooted in Christian tradition but actually early Christianity co-opted many of the pagan and druid traditions of harvest celebrations. Those crazy druids were of course worshiping trees, bushes and sacrificing the occasional goat in the name of their religion during the harvest season and early Christians must have thought, there has got to be a better way and they of course came up with those little peanut chewy things wrapped in the orange and black wax paper (who eats those things, anyway?) as a way to spread their enlightened thinking.
Halloween is, or should be, a kid’s holiday. Ya hoo, free candy! Costumes! Pretend to be something you’re not (hmmm, are we talking presidential primaries or ‘trick or treating’).
If you don’t like Halloween, don’t participate. Keep your kids out of the costume contest at school, turn your porch light off and don’t hand out candy. Stay home and read your bible. Stay home and gnash your teeth about how only you can save the world from the horrors of the spread bite-size Snickers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)