Relatives can bring new meaning to the nations capitol and the papers are abuzz with rumors that Mr. Obama’s mother-in-law is going to move into the White House to take over the chore of raising the girls. Sounds kind of strange “the first girls” but we have a pair of them now, don’t we? Some idiots are even raising stink about putting the girls in “private schools” when Mr. Obama didn’t support vouchers for education.
Why not? It is a parents “moral responsibility” to do the VERY BEST they can for their children, nothing wrong with it. It is a natural reaction and parental right of passage. So Mama is moving in with the clan? Big deal.
Jay Leno said that “Joe Biden was right: Hostile forces will test him (Obama) in the first few months.” And Letterman also jumped on the bandwagon this week with: “A mother-in-law in the White House? Honestly” I thought this was the administration that was against terror?” Why not? Marriage is just nature’s way of keeping people fighting (together) that are not total strangers.
I have it made, my mother-in-law lives in Taiwan, 18,000 miles away, she doesn’t speak English and we have never met. Not like my neighbor Bill, who gets a call from his every other day and she always says …. “Guess who died?” Who needs that?
My mother lives in California on the other side of the country, and she has called me consistently over the years, almost 50 of them, and she always says, “What time is it there?” and I always reply … “It is two hours different mom, it is always gonna be two hours different.”
Mothers. I have always kind of secretly wished that I was born a girl, so I could be out on a drive with my mother, and pull into a Strip Joint for men and then say, “I will be right back, I just got to dash in and pick up my paycheck.” But I am a sick puppy, everyone knows that.
Stupid crook time, I love stooooopid crooks!
Anchorage Alaska. A robber here chose the wrong victims: a commercial fisherman and an amateur hockey player. The fight outside a hotel here included biting and scratching and ended with a knockout punch, and police said suspect Terry Butler woke up in a closet with a security guard standing over him. He was charged with assault and two counts of robbery. The next time he asks someone “who had the steak and who had the fish? Gimme your wallet! He will be a little bit more considerate, I’ll bet.”
Grounded And Stuck On The Tarmac
Corporate jets are hitting the auction block, owners of private jets are rushing to put them up for sale. Like rats leaving a sinking ship, it is not “fashionable” to have your own private jet these days. In November 16% of all the jets in the private sector were up for sale, about 2,541 of them.
Channel Check
Dancin’ With The Stars wrapped up this week, the blond and the kid won it. 20.6 million viewers. There was other good news … Rosie tanked on NBC which proves without a shadow of a doubt that American’s are tired of her rant. I kept thinking of that lipstick and farm animal line, what was that? Oh never mind.
Britney is making a comeback, and I guess it is me, but somehow this time, I just kind of hope the kid can pull it off. I am like that; secretly I yearned for years to have Charlie Brown kick that dog-gone football one time, before Lucy snatched it away! Call me romantic or whatever, I always seem to be in the corner of the under-dog. B’sides, she’s got nice ta-ta’s and Charlie Brown didn’t.
Bad Parenting 101
Cape Coral Florida, kind of funny and at the same time, pretty sad. An intoxicated man had his 9-year-old son take him on a beer run, authorities said. Joshua Fagan, 24, was arrested after police spotted a pickup truck drive onto a median. Fagan told officers he was teaching the boy to drive, but police said the man’s speech was slurred, his breath smelled of alcohol and he could not stand without swaying. An open case of beer was in the back seat, police said.
The highly inebriated passenger was sitting there with a Budweiser Label affixed to his forehead and told the officers, “It could not have been him, he was on the patch.” But I understand he went to jail anyway. Did you notice? He was “24″ and his kid was “9″ what does that tell you about the south?
Keep It Local
Some folks did not appreciate me picking on West “By Gawd” Virginia as they put it in their emails this week. Said that I should look at my own home state, Oklahoma. And they are right. We aren’t so great. Here you go! A quick snap-shot of the Sooner Nation (as they call it), the Home of The Grapes Of Wrath, OU Football and Mattress Bros. Furniture where you always get the best deal on a bedroom workbench (you figure it out, it’ll come to ya).
Our recently looted basketball team from the Northwest that we paid “millions for” is currently losing, rather steady like, and is now ranked what? 79th in the nation. But they are still picking up our trash it just costs more now. All the Republican bloggers have grown strangely quiet and reserved since the election and have settled down into a sort of quiet before the storm mode. Their collective yawp has diminished some. If you are an Okie on an airliner and it starts a rapid decent, and you are destined to crash, you do not know if you are going to heaven or hell …. All you know is you will be going thru Dallas first. That is still the same.
The rising tide of the Obama win didn’t lift our boats all that much, we have our share of homeless, churches struggling to feed people, we are now first in highest percentage of uninsured families in the country (health care), first in locking women up in our prisons, and believe it or not, we are first in grandparents raising school age children in the nation. We used to be first in teenage pregnancy and/or divorces, but I have not heard anything on those items lately, will let you know.
Most of the big name stores at the Mall have moved out, loaded to the gills with shoe stores now. In bad times, about the only constant is shoes, people can still afford a pair of shoes. Not much more than that. Don’t seem to find any pennies in the parking lots anymore. People are stopping to pick them up and put them in their pockets now, months ago, they laid there ripe for the picking, now they are scarce.
New Chevy Dealer opened north of town, but GM won’t floorplan him any inventory. How do you run a car dealership without cars, this a new wrinkle in our expanding, recovering, bailed out half-sunk economy? The news still comes on at five. It is as always, live, local, late breaking, and boring as well you know, why bother?
We lead or are now finding ourselves in the top 47th or 48th spot for heart attacks and obesity, ranked as one of the “most unhealthiest states in the USA” to live (thank God for Mississippi and Alabama and yes, West “By Gawd” Virginia, or we would be number one in that too), and we have more Indian Casino’s than anywhere in the country.
Yea Oklahoma … we are number one … Go Sooners.
(Now do you feel better?)
Sending our very best is the very least we can do.
000
I come from a culture where it’s considered borderline immoral to get paid childcare if there’s a nana around. My mother is 1700 miles away, at the other end of Europe. I haven’t seen her in over a year, and she hasn’t met her grandson yet, but that doesn’t stop me calling every single day and her suggesting that when we go visit next I should leave young Master Spawn with her to raise…
Comment by M — December 5, 2008 @ 7:01 AM
In this year’s election 66% of Oklahoma voters chose McCain while only 34% voted for Obama. Virtually 2 to 1. This was the highest percentage of votes for the GOP candidate making Oklahoma the reddest of the red states.
Oklahoma still ranks number 3 in the nation in teen pregnancies. In 2005 we had THE highest rate of teens who smoked in this country. In 2005, underage drinkers consumed 16.4% of all alcohol sold in Oklahoma, totaling $200 million in sales. These sales provided profits of $97 million to the alcohol industry. We still have one of the highest divorce rates in the nation. Oklahoma ranks 14th in the nation for violent crime.
Yet we still vote for the candidates who champion “family values” with both U. S. Senators and 4 of 5 representatives being Republican. Congresswoman Mary Fallin was first elected to Congress in 2006 on the slogan of “Faith, Family and the Flag.” This was after she had divorced her husband while she was Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma shortly before she married her Highway Patrolman bodyguard.
Family values of the party of moral superiority. Indeed.
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A good comment indeed, thanks again James.
Comment by James W. — December 5, 2008 @ 10:24 AM
I will admit that I, a Vermonter, meddled in OK politics this year. I read a piece on the Huffington Post by Andrew Rice, who was running for the US Senate against incumbent James Imhofe. Imhofe is an “end timer”, who does not belive in Global warming and believes that we should basically destroy nature, the environment or whatever, because the Rapture will be upon us in the not too distant future. Anyway, most in the environmental movement would love to see him gone. So I sent Andrew Rice a donation a couple of times during the campaign.
As far as the economy goes, we’re not doing too well up here in VT either but we’re not burning furniture yet.
Here’s a link to an article in yesterday’s NY Times about my little town. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/us/04middlebury.html?scp=1&sq=Starksboro,%20VT&st=cse
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The article and the link were interesting, thanks. Town been there since the 1700′s and I really got a kick out of what they do with the town meetings and all that. Really down home community living, that is something that is dead in most of America. I kept thinking of that Bob Newhart show, this is my brother Darrel, and my other brother, Darrel. (sorry) We used to live in small town America and I miss it, when I go back for my high school reunions and other events from time to time.
Imhoffe has his head up his …. oh wait, this is a “family blog” or supposed to be a family blog type of watering hole, we have values, we has standards, we has Cookies! What more could you want out of life. Yeah, he is of the “if you have seen one polar bear, you have seen them all.” school of thought. Career dirt-bag, no wait, that should be career politician, what was I thinking he is a member of the Oil Whores club too.
Almost forgot that.
We could do well without him, but somehow these dummies just keep electing him over and over. But I digress. We already have a couple of old crotchety grandma’s covering the bases on stuff like this, I am gonna shut up. I am sure he has a purpose in life, and I have just not taken the time to discover it. But then again, I don’t care, it’s Friday!
Comment by Mstate — December 5, 2008 @ 3:10 PM
The actual B&B where the exteriors for the Bob Newhart Show were shot, is still in existence not far from where I live here in VT.(I’m pretty sure we’ve got a few Darrels and his other brother Darrel, running around up here too.) ;~)
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Amazing, I was just kidding. I have often wished or desired to make it up there in the fall to see the rush of colors when the tree’s turn, might be just wishful thinking for sure now, with things the way the are.
Comment by Mstate — December 5, 2008 @ 11:48 PM
James Inhofe compared people who believed in global warming the Third Reich. He further stated that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
Inhofe added that every claim in the movie, An Inconvenient Truth, “has been refuted scientifically.” He also admitted he’d never seen the movie.
James Inhofe raised almost three times the money Rice did in their race for the Senate. About one-third of Inhofe’s contributions came from special interest groups including the oil and gas industry. Andrew Rice’s campaign funds were 91% from individuals.
As in the presidential race in Oklahoma, Inhofe won his race by a 2-1 margin. We in Sooner Land have the best politicians money can buy!
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You certainly have a flair for this type of comment James, I am going to make you my political editor at large or something, I get too wrapped up in it to do any good, I just want to “flame every stinking last one of them” and this isn’t productive. We are prepared to offer you no benefits, no health care, min wage until you die, and we split all tips and/or gratuities …….. whadya say? Are you in … could be a bail out in it for you sometime in the future (you don’t own an airplane do you?) ……. Here you go, because you are “so special” …. hehehehe
Comment by James W. — December 6, 2008 @ 1:07 AM
Sounds like a great deal! Would like to know a little more about the bailout thing. If I sell my airplane to my brother-in-law and then lease it back, it’s OK isn’t it? Would I have to go all the way to D. C. and appear before Congress to get the money, or could they just take an extra day off and direct deposit the money in my account? That would save a lot of fuel and be beneficial to the environment. Think of it as going green. Hey, can I get a tax credit for that?
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We can do everything that you mentioned “absolutely free” with no problems. There is one remaining thing we need to know about you for our files. Can you please tell us, “Were you born in the USA or have you just recently driven here?” Thank you , we await your reply.
Comment by James W. — December 6, 2008 @ 9:56 AM