FAIR AND BALANCED

Just curious...why is it that the FOX network is always in capital letters? It's not as if the letters stand for anything, like NBC, CBS, or ABC, unless you take Ces' suggestion that it stands for "Fucking Old Xenophobes."

Could it be that FOX viewers don't understand or appreciate the subtle grammatical interplay between upper-case and lower-case letters? Or do they just like to be shouted at all the time?

Is June over yet?

Last month, I commented how the end-of-school-year stuff was simply tuckering me out. But things just haven't gotten better in June. I'm not enumerating this stuff to brag, or to look like one of those overscheduling parents (because I am so NOT that way), but here's what the last couple and next week look like...

Sunday, June 11 - Daughter #2's state Girlchoir concert, downtown Philly
Monday, June 12 - Daughter #1's senior class awards presentation and lunch
Tuesday, June 13 - Daughter #1's high school graduation. Dinner for 14 at home follows.
Wednesday, June 14 - Try and get caught up on work, and prepare for weekend's graduation party.
Thursday and Friday, June 15 and 16 - out-of-town business trip. Back late Friday.
Saturday, June 17 - prep and deliver Daughter #2 for church youth group work camp.
Sunday, June 18 - Daughter #1's graduation party. Due to her naivete or the complete classlessness of those she invited, we planned for a lot more attendees than actually showed up, leaving us with enough food to feed Sudan for a week. Big blow-up when we tell her she cannot go out afterwards with two guests, who I don't know and who didn't make any effort to speak to us, who I'll refer to at the Slutty McSkank Twins.

So we're into a little lull now. Mrs. Po wrapping up the school year, contemplating a change that will put her into a classroom position next year. But wait - there's more!

Friday, June 23 - Daughter #2 returns from work camp.
Saturday, June 24 - Pseudo-daughter #3 (topic for another post) returns from medical school in Grenada. Mother-in-law to visit again, third time this month. (Note to self: how's that vodka supply holding up?) So much for that delayed Fathers' Day celebration.
Sunday, June 25 - Girlchoir concert and picnic. I've been volunteered to cook.
Monday, June 26 - Pseudo-daughter #3 returns to Bosnia for the summer.
Wednesday, June 28 - Daughter #2 leaves for Girlchoir tour to Pacific Northwest.
Thursday, June 29 - I celebrate (?) my Closest-To-But-Not-Yet-50th Birthday.

So, can you understand why I'm really looking forward for the calendar to turn to July?

Call me random...

...but just a few quick thoughts from the car yesterday (that, in retrospect, make me think I ought to check for carbon monoxide leaks in the passenger compartment):

1. This could be a guy thing: is it just me, but don't you feel like you need a cold shower after listening to the Paula Cole song (from the "This Fire" CD) "Feelin' Love?"
2. Starting the day with a dentist appointment pretty much ensures the rest of the day can only get better. (Follow-up: it really didn't, from a business sense, but I did get lunch at the Greenbrook, NJ Route 22 icon, Texas Weiner II, and later found a $20 bill in the bushes in front of my house, while cutting the grass.)
3. How do the people who manufacture, market, and sell Hummers sleep nights?
4. Were I King Of The World, the first power I would want is the ability to take away someone's driver's license, and impound his or her car, on the spot, for any reason I decide (in most cases, it would be because their driving ineptitude and/or attitude annoys me, though I wouldn't want to limit it to that), and leave him or her there in the middle of the freaking road. (Upon further thought, my first act would be to establish a King's Court of Zaftig Blondes to assist me in my royal needs and initiatives.)
5. There is actually a company called "Hiny Hiders" that manufactures restroom stalls (excuse me, "solid plastic restroom partitions"). Were you to work for Hiny Hiders Inc., how could you answer the question "So, who do you work for?" with a straight face, or without embarrassment?

Panderer-In-Chief

Shameful.

Breathtakingly shallow.

Frankly, embarrassing.

I refer, of course, to President Bush's recent initiative to demonize gay marriage in a blatantly-transparent effort to pander to the Bible-abusing knuckle-draggers who form the base (an appropriate term if there ever were one) of his Republican constituency. With all the other national, international, and societal problems facing our country, he proposes that we turn to the sacred institution of marriage between a man and a woman, and save it from attack, to "protect families and children." Attack from “activist judges,” many of whom have been put in place by Republican administrations.

And all this expenditure of Senators’ energy, time, posturing and blather for a proposed Constitutional amendment that has zero, zip, no change of making it out of the Senate, simply to give the appearance of throwing a bone to the conservatives. Memo to the Conservatives: are you so blind in your hatred of gays and lesbians that you can’t see through this latest proposal? Or are you salivating so much that you just don’t care? What’s next, sending the National Guard to Provincetown or San Francisco?

Last I checked, heterosexual couples aren't exactly doing a bang-up job preserving the sacred institution. Why not a constitutional amendment preventing divorce, Mr. President? How about seriously cracking down on spousal abusers, deadbeat dads, etc.? Something, anything, to show some depth of actual, living, breathing concern behind the façade.

Let's get the government out of private lives, shall we? Let's allow the tax and legal benefits extended to heterosexual married couples be extended to all couples in committed, til-death-do-we-part relationships. Let’s treat all love and commitment with dignity. Let's honor ALL people. Let's allow gay couples the same opportunity to live the lives of quiet desperation that heterosexual married couples do.

(Well, maybe we don't put the last part in any legislation...)

Worst Job In The World

There is NO job that I would want less than the administrator of a city school district. Being literally on the other side of the Philadelphia border (I could throw a stone from my home into the City of Philadelphia), I hear and see what goes on every day in this and presumably most inner-city districts: little funding, much in the way of societal challenges, and demonization by our government, criticizing these schools as "failing" without recognizing that many of these children, and families, live day-to-day in an environment 180 degrees removed from many of those on the other side of the border -- with stable families, well-funded districts, active parent participation in education, well-maintained schools, etc. No one in Washington seems to realize that if you can't level the environmental playing field, you can't expect an inner-city school to "succeed," at least by the so-called No Child Left Behind parameters.

That being said...I have to take a little dig at Philadelphia schools superintendent Paul Vallas, who has done what I think is an exceptional job first in Chicago, and now in Philadelphia, trying to improve a city school district. In response to a recent proposal to increase student contribution toward mass transit in order to try and balance the Philadelphia School District's budget, Vallas asked what else might the District cut to balance the budget -- and listed a few options including "buy less books."

It's "FEWER books," Paul, not "less books." But I respect and admire what you're doing for the city's schools, and wouldn't want your job for the world. Though, someday, something draws me toward crossing Stenton Avenue and trying to help, in whatever little way I can. But I've got to win Powerball first so I can ditch this vicious financial-services cycle that has me here where I am now...

(In retrospect: this little linguistic dig sounds WAY petty. But let's throw it out on the Blogosphere, in the spirit of full disclosure. It's that damned Ketel One talking again.)