The State of The World
The world seems always to have been full of petty dictators. If you will think back to your high school history, it was pretty much a parade of monarchist, fascist, socialist, communist, and other-ist dictators. They were everywhere, from ancient Greece to, well, modern Greece and beyond. Generally, those leaders with even a single altruistic quality were quickly gunned down in favor of someone much more self absorbed.
With very few exceptions (the United States was one until very recently) the world has been run by the greedy, the wealthy, the power-hungry, the corrupt, the heartless, the cruel, and the sadistic. Names such as Torquemada, Stalin, Trujillo, Hitler, Batista, Nero, Idi Amin, Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon, Duvalier, Mussolini, Attila the Hun, King Herrod, Saddam Hussein, Chairman Mao, and George W. Bush roll trippingly from the tongue.
Without these people, history would have been a boring succession of scientific achievement and artistic glory set in flower-filled fields under puffy pink clouds. None of that for the human race, though! Not us! All that humans really need is a asshole in a uniform or clerical robes to follow into battle and half of us will be happy to be hewing pieces out of the other half with large iron swords while the gutters and oceans run red and all of the children and the elderly slowly starve to death in their caves.
History has made me the optimist that I am today. 
How to Keep the Handicapped Away From Your Store
I made the mistake of venturing out today. So much for the Christmas spirit. All I wanted was a plate of noodles at Zen Zero, the wonderful Asian restaurant downtown. Drunken noodles, to be exact, medium hot with chicken, spicy brown sauce clinging to the wide Asian noodles, red peppers and onions mixed in, poetry on a plate for eight bucks. Of course, that was not to be. You may or may not be happy to know that my curmudgeonly nature is now back in full force.
Downtown was swamped, virtually gridlocked, a sea of cars from horizon to horizon. It quickly became apparent that half of Lawrence lives for today, when cheap wrapping paper and the really ugly Christmas tree ornaments go on sale for half price. They were hip deep on the sidewalks and every parking place within two counties was full and had a second SUV waiting behind it for another shopper to leave.
A Return to Curmudgeonry
It’s hard to be a curmudgeon at Christmas. That’s where I have been, you see, is having Christmas. I’ve been happy and upbeat, and spending times with friends and relatives that I like. That is to say, I have not been myself, so I have not been writing this column for a few days. I will admit to having the occasional curmudgeonly thought, but they were fleeting, even the ones about the over-commercialization of Christmas. I don’t involve myself in that part of it, so it’s not a big deal for me if I stay away from the television, which is also not a problem since I’m not thrilled about television.
So I have been a convivial curmudgeon for the last few days. That is not a particularly easy trick to pull off, but I think I managed. I noshed with the in-laws, and talked to my family on the telephone, and generally behaved like a normal person, at least to the degree that is possible. Occasionally, I pinched myself to see if perhaps I had expired and not noticed, but that proved to not be the case.
I am feeling small tendrils, however, of curmudgeon-ness slowly creeping in among the ganglia and synapses in my brain. I assume this means a return to normal, or at least normal for me. I would therefore expect to be a steaming pit of negativity, pessimism, and cynicism as early as tomorrow. When the timing is right, I shall strike. You will know it when a curmudgeonly column appears in this space.
A Christmas Meme
The West Virginia Blogger tagged me with a meme that simply requires that I answer some questions about Christmas and me. I can do that.
- Wrapping or gift bags? We don’t buy many gifts anymore, as a sort of a protest against commercialization. But those that we do buy, we wrap. I love to wrap!
- Real or artificial Tree? My wife is a granola. Having an artificial tree allows us to help save the Earth. Or so the hope goes. We have a pink one. ;o) Read more
Hack and Johnson - Sunshine and Stocks
There is a scandal brewing right here in Lawrence, Kansas. The Mayor of Lawrence (Sue Hack), and the head of the County Commission (Bob Johnson) have been found to own stock in Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, during a period where they were determining what tax and fee concessions to give that company to locate in Lawrence. This comes on the heels of their having been found to have met, at last twice, behind closed doors with Deciphera during this same period, in direct contravention of the Kansas Sunshine law. I’m not sure why we have to give away the store to every company that’s thinking of moving to Lawrence, anyway.We may be getting an idea of why they think it is necessary. Both Sue Hack (the Mayor of Lawrence) and Bob Johnson, head of the Couty Commission, wound up, somehow, with $5,000 each in Deciphera stock at the time the tax and fee deals were being cut. I don’t know that either Hack, and ex-school teacher, or Johnson, are doubling as day traders, but the direct purchase of that much stock doesn’t sound like something either one of them would do on a daily basis.
Lew Perkins Fires Hank Booth
It looks like another era is passing this week in Lawrence, and at KU. Hank Booth, a very popular local radio announcer has been off work for a week or so as the Jayhawks men’s basketball announcer at Allen Fieldhouse due to an injury. It looks like Lew Perkins is taking the opportunity to replace him with one of his people, Eric Danielson, who has been doing the women’s basketball games. Booth is an icon in Lawrence, a very public-minded, intelligent, and gifted man who has been in the radio business in Lawrence for many years as a station owner, executive, and announcer.I would imagine, and I have heard rumors, that Booth would not kowtow to Perkins, who is as intent on growing his power base as he is on anything. So Hank Booth seems to have worn out his welcome with the transplanted Easterner Perkins, a man who has been in Lawrence less than ten percent of the time that Hank Booth has. He has a reputation for running roughshod over anything that preceded his tenure as King of the KU Athletic Department, and he has proven that true again today.
Wage Parity and the Lack Thereof
Inclusive of my rant day before yesterday against spoiled gangster athletes, I hate it when things get obviously, wackily out of control in society. Compensation falls into that category just now. Yes, I know, it is always a bit skewed towards famous people, but is has gotten well past the point of ridiculousness. It is having an increasingly negative effect on society. We need to do our best to turn this one around.You know that things are wrong when a mediocre shortstop in the majors makes $3 million a year and an excellent elementary school teacher command perhaps $40,000. We entrust our children to the teacher during their most formative years, but pay her only about 1% of what we pay the baseball player, who is likely as not to be on drugs, hanging out all night in strip clubs, beating his wife, and will probably go to jail at least once in his career.
Idiots In Sports
In the news today, I see that Roger Clemons says he is upset about being named in the steroids scandal, Michael Vick says he is not the beast, and Jason Kidd is unhappy about being named in a lawsuit by a model that he allegedly groped. This is not too difficult, boys. Pull up a chair and just pay attention for a few minutes. It might be too late for you three, and all of the rest of the athletes that have been arrested and convicted lately, but maybe we can save some of the young ones.If you’re upset about being associated with the steroids scandal, stay the hell away from steroids, Roger. If you don’t want to be the beast, Michael, don’t get involved in fighting dogs and killing the ones that don’t win. If you don’t want to be in court, Jason, don’t grope the model. You three are among a tragically large number of stupid effing jocks that give all jocks a bad name. Believe me, there are a lot of professional athletes that don’t deserve to be associated with your stupidity.
Greenhouse Gases - The U.S. Is Still Dragging Its Feet
Yesterday I talked briefly about the recent discovery that the Arctic ice was melting faster than had been thought, and that it was now likely that the ice in the Arctic would be totally gone in summer by the year 2012. That was bad enough, and I took the current administration to task for its unwillingness to be part of a solution to this problem.Now, actions (or rather lack of actions) at the United Nations Climate Change Conference today, despite the accelerated Arctic melting, highlighted the differences between the European Union and the United States in taking action on global warming. The EU want an agreement that contains specific numerical targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases, as does most of the world. As always, the current U.S. administration does not wish to agree to anything specific, lest it irk the major corporations that have funded the Bush / Cheney era in Washington.
Without specific reductions in emission levels, this crisis will turn into a worldwide tragedy. The only thing standing in the way of a reasonable international agreement to curb the production of greenhouse gasses is the outright greed of large American corporations and the plethora of American politicians that they pay to be their puppets. If nothing else, there is an election coming up in this country. If you can find a politician that has not been bought lock, stock, and barrel by the major corporations (not an easy task), vote for that candidate and be vocal about why you did so. Such votes may be all that save our world from the truly ruthless profiteers of the modern era.
Global Warming Urgency
Not long ago, maybe two or three years, there was a feeling that the issues around global warming were not the problem of the current generation. Our generation, and the ones immediately preceding it, had certainly caused the problem through the overuse of fossil fuels: gasoline, coal, natural gas, and so on. Eventually, that was going to cause a lot of ice to melt near the poles, causing ocean levels to rise, among other problems.But none of that was going to get serious until perhaps the beginning of the next century, that is to say the year 2100 or so. That meant that it would not be our children’s problem, or probably even their children’s problem. Most of us thought that it would probably be all right to relax for a while, and not get too worked up about finding solutions for the problem.
