Next.

So.

What now?

Semester's over and I'm not really sure what to do with all this extra time. It's not that I actually have much extra time, but I'm not using my brain for anything conscious right now. For a couple days now. It's weird.

I started re-reading an old book from my callous youth - Weis & Hickman's Dragon's of Autumn Twilight - and I have to say it's the best Twilight book ever written. Gaming dorks - you hear me.

I've read it for about 30 minutes, total. I'm 1/3rd of the way through it. Almost 150 pages. If only articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education were this easy to digest.

Anyway, that's me for now. Trying to figure out what's me for now.

I get back in to one class (maybe two) in June, but right now I've got a couple weeks where my brain gets to turn off, by comparison.

Not hating it at all.

Woot.

gonna pay for it

Republican spokesman Tim Bee spoke to a group of students at the U of A recently and told the story I'm paraphrasing here: He was stopped by a constituent who demanded that the state reopen our closed rest-stops. He said 'we're working on it - that's why we're trying to get this tax passed.' She responded with 'well, you can't raise my taxes.' When pressed on how to pay for the services without raising taxes, she said 'that's the government's problem.' 

In short, we want it all, we want it now, and we don't want to pay for it. 

So, over the last couple of weeks my great state decided they hadn't had enough national-ridicule or international derision. The now-famous Senate Bill 1070 has been derided as a return to Nazi Germany and lauded as a way to protect churches, and said to be responsible for the Balkanization of Policy. Regardless of what it says, it's polarizing my facebook page. I have friends on both sides, keep seeing pundits discussing it, and recently Robert Shelton, the President of U of A, reported Honors Students are pulling out and going to other schools due to SB1070.

I'm a moderate. I believe government should be accountable to the people, but that we, the people, elect government to legislate and rule in our stead, as well as on our behalf. I'm not convinced our system is designed to support this, or to enable growth or progress, so I'm going to join the Tea Party calls to kick everyone out of office.

We've had a republican-controlled legislature in Arizona since the myocene era, and the lowest per-pupil spending in education since people stopped using doubloons to pay for grog.

We've only had one republican governor (Hull) elected to office and NOT impeached/forced to resign since Jack Williams left office in 1975, with the bulk of those intervening governors (Castro, Bolin, Babbit, Mofford, & Napolitano) being democrats - and we still don't have an education system that works.

That's my entire life. Two Republican governors removed from office. Five Democratic governors who didn't fix the education-funding system.

Everyone sucks.

Republicans - you suck because you demand 'small government' and 'personal responsibility' while protecting Enron and making it impossible for the poor to overcome the adversity of not being rich.

Democrats - you suck because you call for protection of civil liberties but won't accept that the world is a dark and scary place and we need an army with a big stick.

Libertarians - you suck for not realizing that the founding fathers were rich white men motivated to protect their economic interests and didn't have the foresight to do a number of things we've since had to correct (discrimination, equal rights, etc...).

Independents - you suck because you aren't willing to CHANGE what a political party is by working from within, while failing to admit that we have a two-party system.

Now, I'm a registered democrat and vote in every election. I'm not married to "my" party though. I own a gun - several in fact. I even have a concealed-carry permit in the mail. I think my economic status is determined by my own actions, and to a lesser extent the actions of my parents. I'm not rich, and it's not because "the man" is keeping me down. Hell, if you look at me, I'm more likely to be the man than a lot of my friends. If I can't afford health insurance (which I couldn't for a while), I don't get sick. If my car breaks, I don't need a government handout to repair it. I'm in over my head in mortgage debt and student-loans, and don't appreciate the government 'helping' everyone else who isn't doing what I'm doing to pay the bills. That said, Fannie Mae made it possible for me to own a house in the first place, and Federal Aid put me through college (four times now).

I wouldn't be where I am without "socialist" services. I'm glad my taxes pay for these things. I am, though, angry that I don't pay more in taxes.

That's right - I said more.

I think these social services are necessary: welfare helps keep the streets safe and keeps children from starving to death; I'm very fond of having a police officer a phone call away; every child in my state deserves a good education, and it's my duty to pay for part of it. So far, Arizonans aren't doing that.

State Property Tax was suspended temporarily and is being motioned to be eliminated entirely. All property-tax in the state is levied by the county, and the lion's share of this is driven by school districts. Instead, state-services are driven by sales-tax and income tax. Sales tax, of course, is a regressive tax whereas property tax is progressive. Arizonans want to charge people who need services (like public school) a greater percentage of their income than those who can afford private services in lieu.

The issue, of course, is that people don't like taxes, and politicians won't get elected if they are in favor of them. (In Governor Brewer's defense, she is historically an anti-tax maven and is the leading proponent of Proposition 100's tax-increase. But then, she's probably not going to win the election in the fall.)

Cutting my taxes sounds good. Cutting my services doesn't. No one is campaigning on services though, not in Arizona.

In the aforementioned speech by Bee, he said that an 10% increase in property tax would generate enough money to fix the state's $3B deficit, and only cost him about $400 per year. Split over 12 (in my case 26) mortgage payments, I can afford that. So do it.

Oh yeah, no one gets reelected raising taxes. Fine with me - they all deserve to be fired for getting us in the position in the first place (Dems and Reps both - no one is innocent at our Capitol). Republicans need to be fired for constantly calling for the state to be in debt. Democrats need to be fired for not doing more to fix it.

After 35 years of them pushing our state into the hole it's in, I can't imagine that an entirely new crop could do much worse. Maybe, just maybe, we should do the smart thing and elect an economist...

Biters can bite me

So, I saw the first Twilight movie. Didn't think it was that horrible. So I read the book. Again, not that horrible. I really enjoy scenes where vampires/monsters/powers do stuff that's designed to make mere mortal humans quail in their drawers. So, watching a dude stop a car with his hand was cool. The terrible CGI-running-through-the-woods stuff, that killed my soul a little. Anyway, it wasn't all horrible.

Then 6 months passed. The trailers for New Moon came out and again, they showed badass monsters doing badass monster things. I was driven by a desire to see a werewolf just shred the hell out of a vampire - either alone (badass) or in a pack (more badass). The trailer teased me, so I wanted to see New Moon.

The woman in my life, for whom I have much thanks and appreciation, hadn't seen the first film, so I Netflixed it in order to give her a chance to be on first base when the 2nd one came out.

Big mistake.
Terrible, huge, big mistake.

Turns out, I'm an idiot. Or a fanboy-for-a-moment.

Turns out that Twilight was actually terrible. Horrible acting. Horrible leads. Weak, lame, poorly executed Romeo & Juliet moments. And frankly, the 'actress' who plays Bella only had two emotions.

And don't get me started on the falling in love forever, at first sight nonsense.

So, after the first DVD was finished, she said "That was really bad". More derision on the actress that played Bella, and her one-dimensional character.

And I just couldn't get in to vampire-boy's 'charming, glittering good looks'.  Looks to me like he got hit in the face with a shovel - except it didn't break his nose, just flattened everything out.

Then, we watch another film with her in it (Adventureland), and she was THE EXACT SAME PERSON! The show wasn't bad, but she portrayed the exact same emotional stretch, depth, and variation as she did when playing Bella. So, the woman in my life for whom I have much affection said "Maybe it's just her".

Enter New Moon. I have to admit, it did take 30 minutes before we couldn't resist complaining about the slow pacing, terrible storyline, horribly sudden plot jerks, and the unfortunate downplay of the Vampires v. Werewolves moment. (And the big hole in the ethics, where the wolf says the vampires get to hang out unless one of them bites a human - after the human tells the wolf that one of them bit her. Should have been open season on the leeches.)

Again, it was terrible. Which made me wonder, what the hell are all these people thinking? Sure, it's made for women (who don't want wolf-vamp violence as much as they may prefer 'true love'). Sure, it's made by committee (Stephanie Meyer didn't write the screenplay, and producers spend money to keep their fingers in the pie). But still, it really wasn't very good.

Again, the woman in my life whom I can't get enough of, pointed out something interesting. The other characters in the film (the rest of the vampires, the outsider werewolves, the friends in the high school (including the one with the Oscar nomination for Up in the Air) and the vampires in Italy) - all of them are MORE INTERESTING than Bella and Edward. Hell, even Jacob was overshadowed by the rest of the wolves.

Plus, they got Dakota Fanning to play what seems like the baddest vampire of them all. Not sure what she can do, why she can do it, and why she isn't ruling the world, but she's interesting. I want to know more about her. And Alice. And the rest of the Cullens. Anyone but Edward and Bella.

DAKOTA FANNING! And the power, well, that does it for me. I want to see Vampires wreck people. I want to see the wreck each other. The one that can do so with a thought - that's the movie I want to see.

Don't get me wrong, I like a good love story. The Romeo & Juliet with Claire Danes was pretty good. I watch Love, Actually pretty much every time TiVo picks it up. I laughed at The Proposal. I'm kind of a sucker for love. Teen infatuation, though, not so much.

Anyway, I just wanted to vomit about what is being sold to little girls as an empowering relationship between THE MAN and his little woman, who needs him to keep her safe, needs him to make her feel good, needs him to feel a thrill, needs him in order to have any strength of personality or worth in the world. She's not smart. She's not talented. She's not graceful. She's just 'special' in the world of Vampires - without which she'd just be that girl in the cast at the dance...

Edward, Bella... y'all can bite me.

No Such Thing As Pandas

Here goes.

Every time I see a 'panda', it's doing something like this:

Maybe this:

Either way, that 'panda' could be my uncle Larry during a Jets game.

Fat. Lazy. Eating. Lounging.

Which led me to thinking, I've never seen a panda.

Actually, I have. Or at least what looks like a panda. I was 6" from one in the Berlin zoo, and I'm still not convinced it wasn't my uncle Larry in a panda-suit. So, with Capitalism reeling from a global recession, China on the upswing through unfair corporate tactics and the general rape of their environment, it occurred to me that this whole Panda Phenomenon might be a long, painful conspiracy on the part of the Chinese Government.

Ever since they suckered Nixon in to visiting, and gave the National Zoo those first 'bears', the U.S. has been struggling to maintain a secure lead over Asian countries in business, economics, math, science, and dark hair.

Pandas. That's why. They put people in convincing bear costumes and forced them to pretend to be a rare 'native species'. Probably where all the Falun Gong supporters have gone. And the Tiananmen protesters.

So, all those people the Chinese government want to keep quiet are permanently sealed in high-tech panda suits, complete with voice inhibitors and deadly claws. They're cumbersome, though, and after a while it sort of grows on you. Thus, they can't get out, can't tell anyone they are in there, and so on. Maybe they've been lobotomized too. Doesn't matter.

What matters is that you've never seen a panda either. No one I know has first-hand experience with a panda. Nothing better than my 6-inches-through-the-glass experience. Every picture? Guy in a suit. Every little animal? Animatronics. (Jim Henson did it, and with him unfortunately out of the picture, no one is protecting his patents).

If you think you've got proof of a panda, I just remind you that Chewbacca was fake too.

So, don't believe everything you read. Don't believe everything you hear. Be skeptical. Is Obama trying to take our guns? Not sure - probably pandas. Is Glenn Beck paid by the Antichrist to slander democrats? Not sure - probably pandas. Are aliens abducting people and probing them in order to ultimately take over our planet? Definitely pandas.

Which introduces the point of this blog. I'm driven by a desire to randomly word-vomit stuff that's on my mind. Much will be for me. Some for others. Some for no one in particular. If you like it, great. If not, don't read it. I'm going to predict that a lot of this is going to involve the life of my twins, who turn either 1 or 7 next month, depending on how you measure these things.

Thanks for the time...