Green Thumbs, Not Caring & Baby Penises - a Few of My Favorite Things

Sometimes, I am a very depressing person to be around. I think of myself as a realist, but in all practicality to the people I know, that just means being a walking wet blanket.

With every possibility that life brings, I am the type of person who is immediately and highly attuned to every single way in which that opportunity will wreak the ultimate and final havoc on my precarious existence. While, I have had plenty of success in life overcoming those feelings and moving to action, it is something people dislike most about my personality. When it's funneled into sarcasm, it can be funny. But eventually, folks need inspiration. They need hope. They need The Secret.

Basically, they need all the shit that's the antithesis of me. Usually, I can temper the more paranoid pessimism, keep anxiousness safely under the surface, and mostly allow myself to maintain a generally positive outlook on life. But my anxiousness is there waiting to be communicated to less anxious, oblivious people.

Anyway, I had an especially a rough day at work yesterday. When it comes to working with bureaucracies, if the policies don't work, you don't eat. Well, shit, they ain't working.

Number 2: remember the chucks-with-a-blazer-wearing, smart, sexy, Asian graphic designer guy? - yea, well, he's in New York on vacation. And as for being estatic the Lakers made the playoffs ? Well, I just recently finished eating the residuals of crow over that loss- will spare all the humiliating story.

So then my brother calls this morning - he is an accountant who has worked for companies like Downey, Countrywide, even WaMul. With it always on my mind, I brought up the LA housing market and the chatter in blogs about the fate of Washington Mutual. Oh, did I mention he also owns a home in Fontana?

Dear Lord ! Maybe not the best topic for discussion. So when I walked out of my door this morning to water my little garden (in the cement that is my back yard,) I wasn't exactly in the best mood. Honestly, I was wondering, "Should I really allow myself to care about plants that take the first opportunity to die if I don't water them for ONE FUCKING DAY? Who needs 'em, right?" But...then, I say...no! You need to water them, especially when they are doing so well....Really!

They were so big and healthy that I had to re-pot them all, just this past week. Looking good! I thought. Looks like weed, heehee. Anyway, I had just re-potted them, so when I went in to prune back some dead leaves, I almost fell over when I saw what appeared to be a baby penis under the foliage!

OK --so, it was a cucumber, but I was no less shocked. Typically, I destroy a lot of the things I am supposed to be nurturing and make it a point to destroy most things that I love (I find, it's easier that way.) But for a minute, I forgot about Bernanke and Condi and Baghdad, Flagpins, fires safety protocol and even my Asian booty call.

In the war against my over-anxious nature, you know, my "problem with caring"...well, this "green-Earth" shit was nice coup.

Dr. of Emergency Homeland Readiness

Or : How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My American Studies Degree.

My family asks me all the time what exactly it is I do. Well, my friends who never leave comments, I run a charity in Los Angeles that basically translates (literally and figuratively) every conceivable emergency management, safety requirement and best-practice procedure to the bureaucratic organizations all over the state that house our children, sick and elderly (as they are usually schools, hospitals and churches and are therefore too broke and dumb to figure such things out for themselves. )

Why do I do lower myself and work for something as incoherent (and frankly - fucking boring) as the bureaucratic behemoth Homeland Security? Personally, as a policy wonk, I feel strongly that intelligent people can't shy away from taking these entities on and making them "work." And two: well, personally, my hope is that when California sees its riot, earthquake, Port-of-Los-Angeles-dirty-bomb-equivalent of Hurricane Katrina, it won't be Blacks, koreans, mexicans, poor children and babies waiting to be airlifted from the roof of the Staples Center.

Anyway- I found this cartoon that better illustrates the kind of thing we do (or should do!) for schools, in layman's terms:



h/t nemo @ self-evident.org

Nice Collar - Pshaw! Yea Right...

White House Press Briefings are always entertaining, if you have the stomach for them. I don't. Dumb blonde-acting bitches like Dana Perino creep.me.out.

Anyway: Yesterday, she uttered these words without the slightest hint of IRONY: (sorry for the lousy audio, ghetto-style, y'all.)

"And I don't know if they'll be able to make up for lost time, but we certainly think that our judges need to be confirmed, especially because people who are out in America and want their day in court are, in many places, waiting for months, if not years, in order to actually get that day. And in Michigan, we were just now able for the first time in the President's seven-and-a-half years, to seat a full bench in the 6th Circuit up in Michigan. So it's not a good reflection on how the Senate has been managed over the past couple of years."

Saying shit like this mere hours after you boss loses ANOTHER Guantanomo case, is pretty funny. Well, it is funny once you are made dead inside....

Of course, no follow-up by our illustrious DC press corps....

Hurting Those Hurting America: Dicking the Gays Edition

Openly Gay Army Sergeant Discharged Under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Decorated Army Sergeant Darren Manzella has been discharged under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law banning lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans from military service, effective June 10. The Iraq war veteran was one of the first openly gay active duty service members to speak with the media while serving inside a war zone. In December 2007, Manzella was profiled by the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. He told correspondent Lesley Stahl that he served openly during much of his time in the Army, with the full support of his colleagues and command...SLDN reports that a growing number of service members are also serving openly without incident. The organization is aware of more than 500 troops who are ‘out’ to their colleagues and, in some cases, their commands.

Wow. There are that many people out to their command? Are they fucking them, as well? My homeboy was a loan officer at a firm in Irvine (not exactly the innocent heartland) and he remained closeted while he worked there; meanwhile, y'all soldier-boys coming out in Afghanistan? That's progress!

But honestly, now that Sgt. Manzella is gone though, I do feel safer. Thank you Bill Clinton. Thank you, Geor..............ugh, you know what?.....I can't even do this, jokingly.

Look, Sarge, come to California and Hollywood where we disdain minorities but love the gays. And it's still legal to get married here for at least another - what? - 2 months, 'til the wingnuts in Palo Alto and Orange County ban it, constitutionally.

And take heart - Barack Obama may be our leader soon and he actually came out of the damn closet just last week. No bullshit.

As the Democratic nominee for President, I am proud to join with and support the LGBT community in an effort to set our nation on a course that recognizes LGBT Americans with full equality under the law.

You read correctly, folks. "I am proud to join the LGBT community." Well, thank God he put the rumors to rest.

Also, please Google "obama gay" when you have some free time and just want to fucking belly laugh. You will see things like "HANNITY: Obama, Wright GAY Relationship" and my favorite, "Is Obama Caught up in Gay Murder Scandal?"

I Never Use the Word "Uppity"

...but Ms. Ahmadinejad just has that look in her eyes...

I read the Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker and it confirmed some of my worst fears . But really - can you blame Dick Cheney? Look - how different these people are! Just their picture alone makes for one HE-larious blog post, right!

I mean, such people are just begging to be shot in the face.

Drilling in Alaska to Florida: The Final Polymerization of America

Clinton STILL cannot understand how, let alone admit that, his Reagan-tard game of "Who's the most laisser-faire?" with Newt and the GOP in the 90's could have possibly hurt America.

Well, Big Oil and their Manchu President "W" sure as hell drank Iraq's milkshake and now they want Alaska's, Florida's and California's.

This article in the WaPost is absoluetly CHILLING - it's truly fucking sad and scary, how the American public is so easily and consistently duped.

To summarize: Cheap oil meant more cheap gas; meant more shopping for cheap plastic goods from China; meant more and cheaper dollars for China; meant more and cheaper credit for everyone else; meant expensive-ass houses to anyone with a pulse to, of course, hold all of our new plastic shit from China!

Greenspan and the Clintons set us up for the polymerization of America, but it took W. to really turn the Constitution plastic. Commenter zcezcest1 said it best:

"Truly, the last line of the Pledge of Allegiance is "with liberty and justice for oil"

UPDATE: U.S. Advised Iraqi Ministry on Oil Deals

Obama Forgoes Public Money in 1st for Major Candidate

This reminds me, I gotta send in my $25 remittance check to my Kenyan...

*Obama Forgoes Public Money in 1st for Major Candidate - NYTimes.com

WaPo discovers thing called "Housing Bublé"

or..."bubble"... I dunno....

Read the three-part series HERE if you have some hours you don't need back.

Then, read this: HILARIOUS COMMENT someone left on teh internets


drstool wrote:
It was a massive criminal enterprise representing the breakdown of any sense of right and wrong in the society as a whole.

Greenspan as the Fraudster in chief continues with his typical, self-serving and disgusting revisionist brand of history as those of us who recognized his culpability years ago are now joined by the late arriving mainstream media who were complicit in the fraud. Rather than reporting on it, the mainstream media acted as its primary cheerleader for years until it all fell apart. There were plenty of analysts, myself included, who saw this coming early in the bubble years and wrote about it at length. We were dismissed and derided by the mainstream media. No one wanted to listen to the "Cassandras." Everyone was too busy skimming the cream and enjoying their ill gotten gains.

In the meantime, fearing what was coming, I sold my home in West Palm Beach, Florida in June 2005, took the money, and got out of Dodge. I gave the same advice to my readers repeatedly throughout 2004-2006. If I could see it coming, so should the "fine reporters" at the Washington Post and elsewhere have seen it. But they were too busy being chummy with the criminals running the scam.

I emailed and spoke to Mr. Pearlstein, a nationally syndicated columnist here at The Post in February 2007 when the pundits were proclaiming a recovery from the market "correction". He had joined that crowd in repeating the nonsense of real estate industry flaks. I warned him that the data showed that the downturn was only in its early stages and begged him to consider the facts. I sent him my most recent report at the time. I never heard back from him. He essentially laughed me off with the attitude, "Who the hell are you?"

At every step of the way, you mainstream "journalists" instead of doing your job, considering facts, and investigating to find the truth, stuck your heads where the sun don't shine.

Well, shame on you. I hope that you are enjoying your declining household equity now too. Because you deserve to lose your shirts for your dereliction of duty. You failed to do your jobs at every step of the way.

This after-the-fact reporting is a joke. It merely serves to highlight your own incompetence, your own complicity, your own failure. There is nothing else to say except,"Shame on you. SHAME!"

Lee Adler
Editor and Publisher
The Wall Street Examiner

posted 6/17/2008 9:29:06 AM



I'm sorry, but that's poetically hilarious. That is some serious impotent indie journalist smackin' down sleepy media giant; some big-time passive aggressive I-toldja-so's. You can feel the inferiority complex, the regret of career decisions long past, the envy and the massive dose of self-righteousness.

Man! that is some schadenfreude fa dat ass. Luvs it.

more LOLbama

This had me confused, as well...



It is written....


Coming to reality?

Happy 100th Blog Post, ProblemWithCaring!

We've come a long way, baby.

So, I have for you all this clip -- in honor of Michelle Obama and all those "Hard-Working Americans"...

HeeBeeJeeBee Hillz & the Power Suits That Are Destroying America

It's no secret that Hillary gives me Nightmares. And the reasons are not from some vague and intangible distrust stemming from her racist bid to gin up the illiterate, elderly and bigoted small town vote.

No, unfortunately, it is a lot more viscerally disturbing and, frankly, more superficial than that. My nightmares mainly stem from her unbridled lovefest of yellow shoulder-pads.

You may all be familiar with my distaste for shoulder pads. (I probably have some sort of negative childhood association as a result of coming of age in the Deep South, where shoulder pads are a way of life.) So, rest assured, this isn't a post about feminism vs post modernist feminist arguments about the state of women politics.

No its really just about those shoulder pads.

It makes me crazy that Hillary just wears yellow ALL THE TIME. And we all know that shoulder pads are a staple of any pantsuit worth its salt, so everyday a new AP photo of HIDEOSITY comes across my desk .

Yes, it bothers me that they are so ugly and unattractive, but folks, its more than that. You have heard me say before and I will say again, shoulder pads do not - I repeat- DO NOT CONNOTE THE POWER OR AUTHORITY she is seeking to display. (And shouldn't!) They only serve to make her look plain, ungainly and hopelessly out of style. Walk with me through them, shall we?

First we have the - was it Super Tuesday? - suit, better known as the Point-Point-Clap-Clap on Crack. I have so many negative cons with this one, I can't even begin to deconstruct it. Let's just say the frantic gesturing was beyond awkward and the shoulder pads amplified that perfectly by bunching up every time she would "point-point." {violent shudder} Excuse me. Moving on.

Here, attempting to mix it up a bit, she forgets one simple yet fundamental, fashion principle: Them shoulder pads shits is UGLAY.

Next:

She tries to play off the masculinity of the shoulder pads with pearls, and then a scarf. Uh-huh. Real successful. About as subtly attractive as Oscar De la Hoya in a fishnets.

I know what you are saying: back when shoulder pads were in style, I bet she was rawkin' 'em! You know back when she was thin, she at least looked good, right??

No. Not even then.

I shouldn't even include this last one, but c'mon! It's like 78% of the goose down in that damn jacket is in the shoulder pads!!

Well, seeing it all laid out like this is truly sad and horrifying. This woman has millions of dollars at her disposal and she can't even get a phone call through to Stacy London on What Not To Wear? And the truly desperate thing about all this? (If I don't say so myself about an obvious race-baiting, cunt, ) she has remarkable and perfectly delicate shoulders:

It's as though she enjoys fucking with us.

May Cause Severe Melanin Displaysia, Loss of Torso

Have you ever been to or inside a Curves office - the weight loss program with the small gyms supposedly for "real women"?

I haven't. I swear! I haven't! I am neither morbidly obese nor extremely old or frail, but that's not why I haven't been. For one thing, I tend not to hang out in places that I call Death by Estrogen Vortexes - places where the average single, available man avoids like the plague (you know, like Arts & Crafts stores, Anna Linen's, baptists churches, etc.)

Anyway, Curves is peddling a new brand of cereal and the lady on the box seems to have seen a dramatic weight loss. She is so beside herself with joy, that her shirt rises a little and exposes "her" midriff.

The box should come with a large disclaimer: Intended mainly for those grown so detestably fat that they have giving up all hope of ever being accepted by society and now just seek to be politely lied to until the day they die.

Don't Worry White Peeps!!

This was my attempt at humor. Don't encourage it. Instead, please visit funny people at lolbama.com.

Drug Czar Says Weed Is NOT Cool: High Schoolers Ask "How Would You Know. Douchebag."

I have a bunch of crackheads in my family, so I understand the sentiment that highly-addictive and habit-forming illicit drugs are a scourge on civil society that need to be controlled...blah blah blah.

But to extend all that righteous indignation to weed? C'mon.

Our favorite policy czar is back with a new front on the War on Drugs - a highly effective interactive web campaign for "teens." (If by highly-effective you mean at generating meaningless click-throughs.)

I luvs that the campaign is called ABOVE the Influence. It's the Protect America Act for the high school druggie set, in everything from its nakedly desperate scare tactics, its meta-ironic name and ultimately to the mundanity of its evil. A talking dog! Hahaha. Wait, where did my freedom go?

The truthy website gives "facts" about weed all culled from one government source - the National Institute for Drug Abuse, housed at the US Department of Health and Human Services. (Very useful facts, by the way, like: Q:What is marijuana? A: Marijuana is an illegal drug or "Stoners are incapable of operating a motor vehicle.") Cherry-picked data from a couple of debunked studies are littered casually, but matter-of-factly, around the site to ostensibly give a realistic look at the "other side" of pot. But it all ends up looking and sounding like the same shit any normal kid could expect to experience during adolescence, anyway - poor judgment, short attention span, poor communication skills - if they haven't already.

So, again, our tax dollars are being used in an attempt to influence teens to be above the influence of their own peer group, and instead, be influenced by their government - lest they meet the horrible fate that is...wait for it...experiencing modest amounts of what they are, in all likelihood, already experiencing.

This makes about as much sense as a war on breast buds and balls dropping.

UPDATE: Racial Disparities Found to Persist as Drug Arrests Rise

Fate

I was walking down the street in Westwood on my way from the book store to Office Depot. It was a beautiful and boring evening; I was just coughing up smog, wondering about This L.A. Life. You know - about how hard it is to get laid here, even though it's like full of sluts. All of a sudden, I stumbled across this FINE-ass guy.

At first he walks pass me, (I hated him at that moment) but then he turns around, comes back and ask me for my number. He is tall, dark and handsome. Ok Ok - he is Asian, so make that Tall, Sallow and Handsome, but regardless, folks, rest assured that I am DEFINITELY hooking up with this man.

I mean - I can't NOT hook-up with him. Look at the street I met him on:

Fate.

Now, They're Just Making Fun of Yo' Fat Ass

The Housing Bubble has reinforced the old perception that "people" don't read the fine print.

The ad execs at the Fake Weight Loss Drug company "Slimquick" are so sure that people don't pay attention to the fine print (or scientific studies...or high school Chemistry books...product labels, their own practical judgment, etc.) that they have just started making fun of fat people.

I mean, more blantantly than usual. What else can you call an advertisement where a fat cartoon character brags about her dramatic weigh tloss on the drug, then ends like this:

READS: DRAMATIZATION: RESULTS NOT TYPICAL. CARTOONS LOSE WEIGHT EASILY. REAL PEOPLE REQUIRE REGULAR EXERCISE AND A REDUCED CALORIE DIET TO LOSE WEIGHT.

huh. whaddaya kno. truthy in advertising.

Home Lending in CA - Always This Creative?

This came on TV the other day and, since my past time is bubblewatching, it struck me as pretty hilarious.





(Married Couple Filling Out Mortgage App)

Modine: I dunno what to say...well...We can come back to that one....
Griffith: Umm..my previous employement?
Modine: Equestrian?
Griffith: Too pompous...self employed...Manner in which Title will be held?
Modine: Like this!...pleaseplease
Griffith: "Held with both hands and a goofy expression."
Modine: Can't believe we are actually going to do this...
Griffith: Marital status?
Both: Single!


This movie, Pacific Heights, was written after the late '80's bubblemania here in California. Real Estate bubbles are nothing new - I guess real estate fraud isn't either.

Arresting Officer: Jenny Buss

Denver Nuggets' Carmelo Anthony arrested on suspicion of DUI

This mug shot is great. Doesn't it just scream: I love this game or I Arrived Alive - Don't Drink and Drive.

A DUI in April - you know what that means -- looks like somebody is ready for the playoffs!! I suggest that you get ready too - but just click here. Don't catch a case, or anything.

Art of False Advertising: Big Oil Virtuoso

Well, you all know that I am cheap (and lazy) but in Los Angeles- washing your car is like washing your ass - you gotta do it. It's a driving prerequisite. I also happen to reside on a sprawling boulevard where it is impossible to wash my car on the street.

So, imagine my surprise and delight when I see the Mobil Gas station near my house, the one with gas most consistently priced a few pennies below its nearest competitor, also had this sign:

WOW, right!? It's a Car Wash and it's only a dollar. And yes, I DID read the fine print that stated clearly "with gas purchase." the discount would probably mean a whole fill-up, but so what? You can't get any thing for a dollar anymore, so still a good deal, right?

Well, yes, I read the fine print. But I missed the invinsible ink print:

If you can't see - click on it. There is the word "OFF" written in dark red - but you are forgiven if you cannot see/read it, as it is invisible if the sign is viewed at a distance greater than say, five or six yards (as in, "from the ground.")

Secret Service Plot to Kill First Black Prez Before CIA Gets Chance

This is scary as hell...



Yea, yea, this guy just wants a picture to resell his autographs on eBay and Obama probably warned the SS that he didn't want them tackling every overzealous autograph seeker and douchebag with a camera phone...

But still, even after watching CNN's horrible documentary on the King Assassination with (bilingual and STILL ditsy) Solidad O'Brien, this freaks me the fuck out.

The Secret Service is the last federal agency that I have any faith remains uncorrupted by Bush Administration incompetence. Another one bites the dust?

What Lilly White(Ass) College Taught Me about My Neighborhood Race Problem

I like to call it the race problem, because that's what we all think it is and I like to call Stanford lily white(ass), 'cause I think that's funny.) Seriously, though, this post was inspired by a lot of things, not least of all by my brother being followed by security guards at a store in Northridge, my cousin being refused money order service at a 7/11 in Koreatown, my nephew being harrassed and arrested by the Torrance PD for "loitering" and some my own personal and hilarious travails with rental management companies all over LA.

You know, the usual weekend Living Black in So Cal.

Way back in 1998 I took what the University called a Freshman Seminar - where six or eight frosh learn from a world reknown, award-winning academic. I chose a George Fredrickson's class on Abraham Lincoln called Myth vs Reality. It really was heaven. The seminar encompassed everything I love to study: politics, American racial history, civil strife, nationalism, early Americana/pop culture, western expansion, slavery, and of course - American mythologizin - all in a format I love: incessantly hearing myself talk about them.

Anyway, Professor Fredrickson was this ancient (white), wrinkly, heavy-set guy with yellow teeth and wandering eyes. Meeting him was like meeting someone from an overthought SNL skit: THIS was my scholar on Race? Well, turns out, an 18-year-old black chick from South Central didn't know everything after all. I remember that:

Following the 1992 Los Angeles riots, he decried "the new face of racism" in the Stanford Daily: "The heart of the matter is the probable belief of these decent citizens that they are in no way responsible for the inner city conditions that spawn crime, disorder and police brutality.

"Because they lack empathy with poor urban blacks, viewing them as alien outsiders rather than fellow citizens, they feel under no obligation to pay the taxes or support the public policies required to deal with the poverty and desperation of the inner cities.

"What makes them racist is that they do not feel the same responsibility for the abominable conditions under which many African Americans are forced to live that they would be likely to feel if the victims were people whom they regarded as akin to themselves."

Ahem.

So when I hear Condi Rice and others claim that America still has a problem or two talking honestly about race, and then Lou Dobbs on primetime CNN dismissing them as "cotton-[picking]" - well, it's like you can hear the man turning in his grave.

Here's the racist's link: Sorry I am not embeding the video, folks. There is already got a video clip of a fat, bald, blowhard douchebag, mindlessly laying-waste to America's collective will to care at all about the fate of this country, I think, like 2 post down?

Hilarious as that clip is, two of those on this blog is just overkill.




ED NOTE: In memory of George M. Fredrickson, Edgar E. Robinson Professor of United States History, Emeritus Leland Stanford, Junior University, a dope individual and all around down-to-earth guy.

Top Four Horsemen, er, Headlines on MSN.com

Hey -- Is the main stream media FINALLY waking up to the fact that America is fucked, and the world as we know it, is like, in serious danger?


New warnings on Medicare, Social Security finances


Vast Antarctic ice shelf on verge of collapse


Record fall for home prices


Ford sells Jaguar/Land Rover to Tata (Indian Company)


Yea, I know: they are just whistling dixie, waiting for the next chance to loop the Rev. Wright tape and Hillary's '96 Bosnia Landing.

The So and So

This Dickhead is an elected official.

No Longer Agonizing Over These Anti-War Post

A year ago, this post would have been filled with angst.

Not anymore. Why not? Well, today, in Baghdad, things are different:


Today:

Today:

Today:

Today, John McCain is there.

"We are winning."

Moving on.