Does anyone else get the feeling that politicians just don’t care anymore? Gov. Mark Sanford returned to work after missing for five days. After returning, the Gov. admitted to an affair, but said he was not going to resign.
I’m not sure of Mark’s exact words, but I think he said something like, ‘... I’m a straight shooter: I had an affair...’
Hey Mark: Could you be a little bit less of a straight shooter?
No one wants to hear about your affair. The only time a person wants to hear about an affair is if it’s an imaginary affair. An affair that takes place in the movies. The only time anyone wants to hear about an affair is if it is an affair between say, a young first-term senator played by Josh Harnett and fiesty, independent environmentalist lawyer played by Sacrlett Johannsenn. That is the only time any person wants to hear about an affair.
As for real-life 50-ish Gov that have affairs: Don’t even mention it. I mean, it’s your decision to do something like that if you want too... but don’t mention it to me, any where near me, or in any media outlet where I might see or hear about the affair. Your affair is not a mental picture I want in my head.
And instead of apologizing for the affair, how about about apologizing for the 5 days of work you missed?
Because here is the thing about affairs and missing work: I think the average person understands when a Gov. or President has an affair. I’m not saying the average person likes it, or thinks its a good idea.
I’m just saying, it’s understandable. Maybe the Gov’s marriage was going through a rough patch, one night perhaps he and the ‘other woman’ had a little too much vino and - boom! - things happen.
I think the average person sees affairs as something like getting really, really drunk at a party, or showing up for work really loaded. It’s nothing to be proud of, but it happens. Not admirable, but understandable.
But missing work? That’s not understandable. It’s not understandable to the average person, because the average person can’t miss work. We can understand sleeping with someone you shouldn’t, because things happen. We understand showing up for work DRUNK, because that happens. We don’t understand show up for work, NOT THERE.
Because when the average person doesn’t show up for work, he or she had better be in a coma. Rolling into work after a week with a ‘opps! Sorry!’ on your lips doesn’t cut it.
But dispite this affair, I would vote to the Gov if he ran for higher office.
Why?
Because of his wife. The Gov’s wife wasn’t like other policitians wives that had been cheated on.
Lately, many wives seem to standing next to their man, the Gov. that had been cheating on them, and the wives are saying stuff like, ‘they are working to repair the marriage’ or ‘they hope everyone respects the difficult time’.
Not Mrs. Sanford.
When Mrs. Sanford was asked where Mr. Sanford was, her answer was, ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care’.
Whenever a wife says she doesn’t know or care where her husband is, the wife KNOWS.
Mrs. Sanford wasn’t saying, ‘Could you please leave is alone in this difficult time?’. Mrs. Sanford was saying, ‘Bother me all you want. Bother my husband all you want. I’m not sure where he is, but you may want to check Latin America.’
I like that in a lady. And that lady is one of the reasons why I would vote for her husband for higher office, if he ran.
Suppose Mark gets voted into office. And Mark is in the White House, doing his thing, and after work Mark goes home.
At home, Mark starts talking about his day. Mrs. Sanford is listening to his stories. Mark is going on and on, complaining about how hard he has to work, and how bad Congress is being, and Mark is saying stuff like, ‘This North Korea... I don’t know what I am going to do it... It’s a bad situation’.
At some point Mrs. Sanford is going to turn around and say, ‘North Korea? Let me ask you this: did you ask your whore about it? And what does your whore say about North Korea?’
I get the feeling Mark Sanford would have the North Korea situation fixed up toot-sweet, just so that is it never brought up in conversation again.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Kung Fu Panda Review, Part 3
But enough about the dang Turtle. There is another thing I didn’t like about ‘Kung Fu Panda’.
The other thing I didn’t like about ‘Kung Fu Panda’ is the way the Fat-Freakin’ Panda becomes Kung Fu Panda. He just fell into it. Literally.
In the movie, the Fat-Freakin’ Panda is walking along, and he literally falls in front of the already-mentioned ‘Wise Turtle’. The Turtle says, ‘Hey, this clumsy guy right here, this guy, this guy that can’t stand up... He’s the Perfect Warrior. Clumsy Guy is the Perfect Warrior. The guy who is not the Perfect Warrior is that Tiger that has been training for 20 years. The Tiger that has been training really hard and showing dedication? That Tiger is not the Perfect Warrior. Instead, we are going to go with the out-of-shape Panda that just walking into the dojo and fell down. We are going to go with the out-of-shape Panda for the Perfect Warrior position.’
Three things about this situation:
1 - It sounds like ‘Wise Turtle’ may be on the take from the the family of the Fat-Freakin’ Panda. Where is this movie taking place? 1940’s Chicago? Is the Perfect Warrior position a judgeship? ‘For a mere 5 grand, your son can be the Perfect Warrior’.
2 - Suppose I am trying to raise a kid, and I show him this movie. Now, we are all adults here. We have all experienced the ups and downs off life. We all know that sometimes, things don’t work out. That the race isn’t always to the swift, and that sometimes, no matter how hard a person works at some thing, the brass ring may slip from your grasp. That is a truth of life.
And that is a truth that adults should to hide from children for as long as possible. I’m not saying lie to the kid, because lying is wrong and people shouldn’t do it.
I’m just saying, there are different versions of the truth, and sometimes sometimes one version of the truth is better then another version.
For example: Suppose my son stinks at baseball. Just stinks out loud. But as a Dad, I want my son to get better. Also, I may not want my son to be home all the time. I mean, c’mon, Dad needs some alone time. I love the kid, but I need five minutes of peace and quiet!! Can I just get five minutes??
But I digress. Whatever the reason I want my sone to play baseball, even though he is not a good athlete, telling my son only part of the truth is key.
Here is the scenario as it might play out:
My son goes to his first little league game. And he plays terrible. My son just stinks out loud.
Now, if I was a 100% truthful person, after my son says, ‘Dad, I’m bad at this game!’, I would say, ‘Son, you are bad at this game. It’s genetic. I’m bad at this game, all your Uncles are bad at this game, your GrandDa was bad at this game, your great GrandDa was bad at this game. In fact, millions of years ago, when the creature that crawled out of the oooze and that would later evolve into the branch of the human race that would be your family had it’s first primitive thoughts, the creature’s first thoughts were, ‘Wow... when there is such a thing as baseball, my ancestor’s will stink at it.’’
But I am not that honest of a person. I am not that honest because I care. I don’t want my son sitting home alone. A bad day on the baseball field is better then an good day home alone.
So I say to my son, ‘Hey, son, if you practice... you will get better.’
Which is true. If a person does practice, they will get better.
But if I was 100% honest, I would say, ‘Hey, son, if you practice... you will get better. You may not get better enough to look good on field, but you may be able to claw your way out of full-blown total-stinkness.’
The 100% honest approach isn’t really all that inspiring. So the son get the half-honest approach.
3 - ‘Something is special if you believe it’s special’.
This... This is the MAJOR problem I have with Kung Fu Panda. It’s not a line the should be said in a movie that a child is going to watch.
I’m not saying that this line shouldn’t be said because it isn’t true; on the contrary, the line is very true. Some things are special if a person believes that are special. Perhaps there is a certain corner in a certain city that is special to you, because it is the first place you kissed a girl. I’m just picking this address at random, put perhaps the corner of 46th & Queens Blvd. is a special corner to someone because it is the first place he kissed Mary Louise O’Hagen. To everyone else, it is just dirty corner on busy street.
But to someone, everytime he jogs past that corner, he says to himself, ‘Mary, you were special to ME’. And that non-special corner is special to that particular person.
But saying to a kid, ‘Something is special if you believe it’s special’ is bad advice.
Because what is going to happen is this tragedy:
The kid is going to be up at bat at little league ball (keep in mind the already mentioned fact that the kid stinks at ball).
The kid is going to be thinking to himself, ‘Alright, I got this in the bag. I’m going to hit a home run. I’m going to the hero of the team. I can’t miss. I’m special’.
Three pitches later - BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! - the kid is struck out, and he ain’t feeling so special.
Now I’m the person that is going to walk home with this kid. Kung Fu Panda isn’t going to be around on the long walk home.
On that long walk home the kid - my kid - is going to be real quiet.
Being the Da, I’m going to feel bad. My kid is quiet, usually kids aren’t quiet. Quiet must mean there is a problem. I don’t like problems.
So I say to my kid, ‘Heeeyyyyy... good game today, huh?’
And my kid, he don’t say nothing. My kid just stays quiet and looks at the sidewalk.
And I think to myself, ‘Please... please, God... let my kid be temporarily deaf’.
Because if my kid wasn’t temporarily deaf, that would mean that my kid can hear.
There is only one reason why my kid would still be quiet, if my kid could hear, and still not say anything.
And that reason is because the kid is still upset about the entire ‘striking out’ thing.
So, once again, I say to my kid, ‘Hey buddy.... how’s things?? Ya like the game? huh?? did ya?’
My kid is going to say, ‘Da... ‘
I’m going to start thinking to myself, ‘Please, please, please, son, starting talking about Transformers. Or XBox. Ninjas. Anything. Anything but the strike-out. Please.’
But my kid will continue, ‘Da... I struck out today.’ My son will look up at me with near-tears in his eyes.
At moment, I am going to have to lie to my son. I am going to have to lie because of that Panda.
I am going to have to say, ‘Son, don’t worry. Things didn’t go your way today, but if you practice hard, maybe next time.’
Then my son will say, ‘But Dad, I believed I was special.’
I will say to my son, ‘Son, you are special’. And that will really hurt because I was born in the the area where if someone was ‘special’, it wasn’t a good thing. (A person didn’t want to be described as ‘special’ when I was growing up).
'Something is special if you believe it's special' is not the best advice for kids.
The other thing I didn’t like about ‘Kung Fu Panda’ is the way the Fat-Freakin’ Panda becomes Kung Fu Panda. He just fell into it. Literally.
In the movie, the Fat-Freakin’ Panda is walking along, and he literally falls in front of the already-mentioned ‘Wise Turtle’. The Turtle says, ‘Hey, this clumsy guy right here, this guy, this guy that can’t stand up... He’s the Perfect Warrior. Clumsy Guy is the Perfect Warrior. The guy who is not the Perfect Warrior is that Tiger that has been training for 20 years. The Tiger that has been training really hard and showing dedication? That Tiger is not the Perfect Warrior. Instead, we are going to go with the out-of-shape Panda that just walking into the dojo and fell down. We are going to go with the out-of-shape Panda for the Perfect Warrior position.’
Three things about this situation:
1 - It sounds like ‘Wise Turtle’ may be on the take from the the family of the Fat-Freakin’ Panda. Where is this movie taking place? 1940’s Chicago? Is the Perfect Warrior position a judgeship? ‘For a mere 5 grand, your son can be the Perfect Warrior’.
2 - Suppose I am trying to raise a kid, and I show him this movie. Now, we are all adults here. We have all experienced the ups and downs off life. We all know that sometimes, things don’t work out. That the race isn’t always to the swift, and that sometimes, no matter how hard a person works at some thing, the brass ring may slip from your grasp. That is a truth of life.
And that is a truth that adults should to hide from children for as long as possible. I’m not saying lie to the kid, because lying is wrong and people shouldn’t do it.
I’m just saying, there are different versions of the truth, and sometimes sometimes one version of the truth is better then another version.
For example: Suppose my son stinks at baseball. Just stinks out loud. But as a Dad, I want my son to get better. Also, I may not want my son to be home all the time. I mean, c’mon, Dad needs some alone time. I love the kid, but I need five minutes of peace and quiet!! Can I just get five minutes??
But I digress. Whatever the reason I want my sone to play baseball, even though he is not a good athlete, telling my son only part of the truth is key.
Here is the scenario as it might play out:
My son goes to his first little league game. And he plays terrible. My son just stinks out loud.
Now, if I was a 100% truthful person, after my son says, ‘Dad, I’m bad at this game!’, I would say, ‘Son, you are bad at this game. It’s genetic. I’m bad at this game, all your Uncles are bad at this game, your GrandDa was bad at this game, your great GrandDa was bad at this game. In fact, millions of years ago, when the creature that crawled out of the oooze and that would later evolve into the branch of the human race that would be your family had it’s first primitive thoughts, the creature’s first thoughts were, ‘Wow... when there is such a thing as baseball, my ancestor’s will stink at it.’’
But I am not that honest of a person. I am not that honest because I care. I don’t want my son sitting home alone. A bad day on the baseball field is better then an good day home alone.
So I say to my son, ‘Hey, son, if you practice... you will get better.’
Which is true. If a person does practice, they will get better.
But if I was 100% honest, I would say, ‘Hey, son, if you practice... you will get better. You may not get better enough to look good on field, but you may be able to claw your way out of full-blown total-stinkness.’
The 100% honest approach isn’t really all that inspiring. So the son get the half-honest approach.
3 - ‘Something is special if you believe it’s special’.
This... This is the MAJOR problem I have with Kung Fu Panda. It’s not a line the should be said in a movie that a child is going to watch.
I’m not saying that this line shouldn’t be said because it isn’t true; on the contrary, the line is very true. Some things are special if a person believes that are special. Perhaps there is a certain corner in a certain city that is special to you, because it is the first place you kissed a girl. I’m just picking this address at random, put perhaps the corner of 46th & Queens Blvd. is a special corner to someone because it is the first place he kissed Mary Louise O’Hagen. To everyone else, it is just dirty corner on busy street.
But to someone, everytime he jogs past that corner, he says to himself, ‘Mary, you were special to ME’. And that non-special corner is special to that particular person.
But saying to a kid, ‘Something is special if you believe it’s special’ is bad advice.
Because what is going to happen is this tragedy:
The kid is going to be up at bat at little league ball (keep in mind the already mentioned fact that the kid stinks at ball).
The kid is going to be thinking to himself, ‘Alright, I got this in the bag. I’m going to hit a home run. I’m going to the hero of the team. I can’t miss. I’m special’.
Three pitches later - BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! - the kid is struck out, and he ain’t feeling so special.
Now I’m the person that is going to walk home with this kid. Kung Fu Panda isn’t going to be around on the long walk home.
On that long walk home the kid - my kid - is going to be real quiet.
Being the Da, I’m going to feel bad. My kid is quiet, usually kids aren’t quiet. Quiet must mean there is a problem. I don’t like problems.
So I say to my kid, ‘Heeeyyyyy... good game today, huh?’
And my kid, he don’t say nothing. My kid just stays quiet and looks at the sidewalk.
And I think to myself, ‘Please... please, God... let my kid be temporarily deaf’.
Because if my kid wasn’t temporarily deaf, that would mean that my kid can hear.
There is only one reason why my kid would still be quiet, if my kid could hear, and still not say anything.
And that reason is because the kid is still upset about the entire ‘striking out’ thing.
So, once again, I say to my kid, ‘Hey buddy.... how’s things?? Ya like the game? huh?? did ya?’
My kid is going to say, ‘Da... ‘
I’m going to start thinking to myself, ‘Please, please, please, son, starting talking about Transformers. Or XBox. Ninjas. Anything. Anything but the strike-out. Please.’
But my kid will continue, ‘Da... I struck out today.’ My son will look up at me with near-tears in his eyes.
At moment, I am going to have to lie to my son. I am going to have to lie because of that Panda.
I am going to have to say, ‘Son, don’t worry. Things didn’t go your way today, but if you practice hard, maybe next time.’
Then my son will say, ‘But Dad, I believed I was special.’
I will say to my son, ‘Son, you are special’. And that will really hurt because I was born in the the area where if someone was ‘special’, it wasn’t a good thing. (A person didn’t want to be described as ‘special’ when I was growing up).
'Something is special if you believe it's special' is not the best advice for kids.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Kung Fu Panda Review, Part 2.
(Rant continued from Part 1...) Why the heck shouldn’t the Tiger feel a little ticked? I’m not saying The Tiger should take his anger out on the innocent town, but a little anger is justified.
Because here is the thing: The Perfect Warrior job title... I’m assuming that is like every other civil service position. There is a test you have to take, and then all the scores are posted somewhere and the person that scores the highest gets the job.
If I take the test to work at the Post Office, and after taking the test the Post Office calls me up and says, ‘yeah, you didn’t get the job’, and I ask, ‘why?’, and if the Post Office replies, ‘Yeah.. you just didn’t.’, I’m going to be a little pissed. Granted, I’m not going to be pissed off enough to wreak a town, but I’m still going to be a little pissed. Lawyers are going to get called. Civil Defense Attornies are going to notified. It’s kind of Un-American just to accept the ‘no’. Getting told ‘no’ without an explination is something that sounds more Iranian or North Korean-like. This ‘Wise Turtle’ is sounding more and more like the ‘Ayatollah’ Turtle.
Because here is the thing: The Perfect Warrior job title... I’m assuming that is like every other civil service position. There is a test you have to take, and then all the scores are posted somewhere and the person that scores the highest gets the job.
If I take the test to work at the Post Office, and after taking the test the Post Office calls me up and says, ‘yeah, you didn’t get the job’, and I ask, ‘why?’, and if the Post Office replies, ‘Yeah.. you just didn’t.’, I’m going to be a little pissed. Granted, I’m not going to be pissed off enough to wreak a town, but I’m still going to be a little pissed. Lawyers are going to get called. Civil Defense Attornies are going to notified. It’s kind of Un-American just to accept the ‘no’. Getting told ‘no’ without an explination is something that sounds more Iranian or North Korean-like. This ‘Wise Turtle’ is sounding more and more like the ‘Ayatollah’ Turtle.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Kung Fu Panda Review, Part 1.
I watched Kung Fu Panda the other day.
For those of you that haven’t seen Kung Fu Panda: If you are a Kung Fu movie fan, see it. Awesome visuals.
But with that said, I don’t know if would want to plop this movie in the DVD player and let my kids watch it unsupervised.
Here’s why:
1 - Because of the way The Evil Tiger becomes evil.
2 - Because of the message, ‘Something is special when you believe it’s special’
Let’s look at these two reasons:
The Tiger becomes The Evil Tiger because he trains all his life to become a perfect warrior, and then when it is time to be named the perfect warrior, The Wise Turtle says, ‘Yeah... You’re not the perfect warrior’.
On hearing this news, The Tiger becomes The Evil Tiger and wreaks the town where he lives.
Now, if a person or Tiger gets bad news, I don’t recommend wreaking the town. I don’t think that’s right. It’s wrong.
But I would like to point out, that maybe The Wise Turtle wasn’t so wise.
I mean, Wise Turtle knew Tiger his whole life. Wise Turtle could have said, ‘Hey there, Tiger... you’ve been training kind of hard. Maybe you should take Saturday off, go into town, meet a nice girl Tiger? Maybe you and her could go out, have some beers, take in a movie, maybe see what happens?’
I’m just saying, The Wise Turle may have been ‘The Wise Turtle’, but he wasn’t ‘The Good Friend Turtle’.
If I have a good friend and have to tell him bad news, I kind of dress it up a little bit.
For example, suppose I have a friend, and his girl his cheating on him. I don’t just walk up to the guy on Friday at five and say, ‘Hey, that girl you’ve been seeing for three years. Yeah, it’s all around the office: She likes the Mail-Room guy now.’
I don’t say stuff like that, because I am a good friend. I say stuff like, ‘Hey, that girl you’ve been seeing for some time... I don’t thing she is right for you... yeah.. maybe you want to see what else if out there...’. The right thing to do is drop a few hints, get the guy thinking about other options.
Wise Turtle could have done the same thing. Could have said, ‘Hey, Pal, this perfect warrior thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Hours are long, you have to train all the time. Lots of fights. No pension. I’m thinking maybe you want to try accounting... Hours are good. You’d still have time to hit the gym. No pressure. Just something to think about.’
For those of you that haven’t seen Kung Fu Panda: If you are a Kung Fu movie fan, see it. Awesome visuals.
But with that said, I don’t know if would want to plop this movie in the DVD player and let my kids watch it unsupervised.
Here’s why:
1 - Because of the way The Evil Tiger becomes evil.
2 - Because of the message, ‘Something is special when you believe it’s special’
Let’s look at these two reasons:
The Tiger becomes The Evil Tiger because he trains all his life to become a perfect warrior, and then when it is time to be named the perfect warrior, The Wise Turtle says, ‘Yeah... You’re not the perfect warrior’.
On hearing this news, The Tiger becomes The Evil Tiger and wreaks the town where he lives.
Now, if a person or Tiger gets bad news, I don’t recommend wreaking the town. I don’t think that’s right. It’s wrong.
But I would like to point out, that maybe The Wise Turtle wasn’t so wise.
I mean, Wise Turtle knew Tiger his whole life. Wise Turtle could have said, ‘Hey there, Tiger... you’ve been training kind of hard. Maybe you should take Saturday off, go into town, meet a nice girl Tiger? Maybe you and her could go out, have some beers, take in a movie, maybe see what happens?’
I’m just saying, The Wise Turle may have been ‘The Wise Turtle’, but he wasn’t ‘The Good Friend Turtle’.
If I have a good friend and have to tell him bad news, I kind of dress it up a little bit.
For example, suppose I have a friend, and his girl his cheating on him. I don’t just walk up to the guy on Friday at five and say, ‘Hey, that girl you’ve been seeing for three years. Yeah, it’s all around the office: She likes the Mail-Room guy now.’
I don’t say stuff like that, because I am a good friend. I say stuff like, ‘Hey, that girl you’ve been seeing for some time... I don’t thing she is right for you... yeah.. maybe you want to see what else if out there...’. The right thing to do is drop a few hints, get the guy thinking about other options.
Wise Turtle could have done the same thing. Could have said, ‘Hey, Pal, this perfect warrior thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Hours are long, you have to train all the time. Lots of fights. No pension. I’m thinking maybe you want to try accounting... Hours are good. You’d still have time to hit the gym. No pressure. Just something to think about.’
Sunday, June 14, 2009
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