Daylight savings time...

...is a week old now, and I think, we're finally getting used to it.  But why do we do it, anyway? 

Everyone prefers that it stay lighter later in the day.  Winters are dreary enough, without going to work in the dark, and returning from work in the dark.  At least with Daylight Saving, you may go to work in the dark, but you'll always come home in the light.

And any more it's only about 4 months long!

I thought one of the reasons was that the school children would not have to wait in the dark for the bus.  Seems to me, I've seen the school buses running in the dark, in the morning, in the winter, anyway! Perhaps we could just start school half an hour later?  Let them have a half hour for lunch.  An hour is too long, and they just start food fights after the first 15 minutes anyway, don't they?

Still adjusting my sleep, my clocks, and my routine on Day 106!

And now Rush Limbaugh chimes in...

Another slow learner...

Yes, of course Rush made some questionable remarks about the Japanese and the way they're handling the disaster.  I'd LOVE to think this would be enough to get him kicked off his network.  Probably no such luck.   How can we teach our kids respect, when we have goofs like this on the airways?    Not that the kids listen to this drivel, but their parents do!  And so they bring this bad behavior to the dinner table conversation.

I'll be listening to NPR, Rush's antithesis, on this Day 105!

Can you take Michelle Bachman seriously?

I only say this because a panellist on Bill Mahr's late night talk show was all atwitter about Michelle Bachman as a potential presidential candidate.   The gal (can't remember her name) was incensed because the only Republican candidates seemed to be white, southern gentlemen, although a few of the candidates mentioned hailed from Minnesota, Indiana, Massachusetts...

When asked who she would endorse, leaving Sarah Palin out of the mix, she mentioned Bachman.

 Bill Mahr then went on to point out how Bachman  had said something about the founding fathers eliminating slavery (huh?) and that Thomas Jefferson was the person who liberated the slaves.  Well maybe he freed his own slaves (don't really know) but I do believe Abraham Lincoln gets the majority of the credit. 

Bachman was never on my radar, nor is politics for much of the year, so I'm just paraphrasing what I heard on Bill's show.  But then yesterday, I DID see a blurb on Bachman that she missed her history lesson yet again, and said that New Hampshire was the place where the "shot heard round the world" was fired.  Indeed it was in Massachusetts, but possibly the folks in New Hampshire heard it too?

Now if I were interested in running for public office, I'd be sure to only talk about things I knew about, and when in politics, I think history should be something you'd know about!  Of course the "shot" may have been a bit harder for me, but not Lincoln!   I may have had an advantage growing up in Illinois, where he is revered, and we even got a day off for his birthday! 

Still trying to make my own history...on Day 104!

And now football...

Yeegads...we all spend hours eating, sleeping, watching, talking sports.  We buy the sportswear, we go to the games, hell...we even pay for the fancy covered domes that the sports are played in.  And what do we get in return?  A strike by the players.  In this latest case, the football players.

They're mad because the owners are making so many millions,  The owners are mad because the players want more millions.  What about the millions who don't ask anything, and still have to pay millions, although it may be somewhat diluted by the individual numbers.  The fans???!!!

How about the owners drop the price of tickets, so that the average Joe, who may or may not be out of a job at this time, can afford at least a bleacher seat?  And lower the cost of "licensed NFL gear" too.  The owners, too, could take a pay cut.   Then they could legitimately say they don't have the money to pay more, and we might believe it!  

Until then, we'll just have to read about the whiney millionaires and billionaires in the news this Day 103!

Are we all just slow learners?

Today I heard that Gilbert Godfrey (sp?), the voice of AFLAC insurance, put out an offensive tweet that I suppose he thought was clever, about the tragedy in Japan, following the earthquake.  Now granted, many of us want to find some humor in a tragedy, jsut to calm our own nerves, as we worry about the long term consequences.  Howwever, these are usually just among close friends, who even then, might still be offended.  Godfrey, on the other hand, put it out for the world to see.

Then there was another little blurb on AOL's newspage, about some B-llist actress who may have yet some MORE nude pictures floating around the internet. I mean...MORE???  ANY are TOO many.  Did she not see this coming?  Did she think it would boost her popularity?  Rather than make her a laughing stock?  Didn't Paris Hilton's faux pas a couple years ago make any impression? 

OMG, I just read the whole article and it seems that Glenn Beck, 50 Cent, and even Lisa Kudrow made inane comments.  50 Cent was the only one to clarify his comments and add that we should all be sympathetic towards the Japanese. 

I guess these people don't read the paper;  or think that due to their (assumed) popularity, that they're above criticism, and won't be reviled for their absolutely assinine behavior.  I'm happy to wallow in my anonymity on this Day 102!

Basketball...my last word...

Not my last blog, just my last word on the subject.  I do not like basketball.   I don't know if it's because I find the game boring, or the athletes, especially the pros, even more boring.  But this week is all about the Final Four.  The apex of basketballdom.  Nirvana for some!

All this, and when I was in college I saw what some would think was "great basketball."  Why Walt Frazier went to my college and played there while I was there.  Our school even went to the N.I.T. Championships, and WON!!!

I went to New Orleans that week instead of New York, and slept on the beach of Lake Ponchatrain, and saw racism close-up in rural Louisiana.    So I missed the N.I.T.  But then I missed Woodstock, and I missed the Chicago Democratic Convention also.  Those two I regret...the N.I.T.,  not at all!

One of our local college backetball teams did win their Missouri Valley Conference title.  I'm happy for them, but I'm not about to go out and  buy t-shirt memorabilia, or season's passes for next year.   They're now hoping to get an invitation to the NCAA playoffs.  Me, I'd rather think about a return trip to New Orleans, on Day 101!

Sorry...

What an over-worked, over-used word!

Every time you turn around, someone is saying "sorry!"  And I want to say "Sorry for what?"  Because you stepped in front of me going through a door?  So what?  Because you took up more than half of the grocery aisle?  So what?  Because you reached in front of me for something on a shelf?  So what?  Take a moment and add up how many times someone says to you, in the course of a normal day "sorry."  Then try to take stock of whether this was just lips moving, or was there something behind the admonition.

Webster's definition, paraphrased, says that "sorry" means: full of sorrow, pity, or sympathy; also an expression of mild regret; inferior in worth or quality; wretched, miserable.

Except for perhaps the phrase "expression of mild regret", none of those definitions apply to your behavior in the above scenarios, in my mind.  I'd rather hear a simply "pardon me" or "excuse me", but "sorry...?"  It flows off everyone's tongue as though it's a brush-off. 

I do say I'm "sorry" if I cause someone a grave inconvenience (such as actually trampling their feet in a movie theater), after I've said "excuse me" while moving down the row.   But otherwise, I'm usually NOT sorry if I do something that might very temporarily inconvenience you.  Could you imagine saying "sorry" every time you jostled someone on the subway train, or the over-crowded bus?  But I guess that's just me, on Day 100!