A Wicked Plan Born of BIG HUGS!

Somehow, this should be made into an actual TV show.

Seriously, whose idea was that creepy baby in the sun?  As if Teletubbies bouncing to death metal isn't enough of a mind fuck...

Toppling the Food Pyramid

First of all, I'm curious about who on earth honestly likes breakfast pizza.

To be fair, things like eggs, bacon, and sausage are really good respectively.  And pizza is absolutely awesome on its own.  So how is it that you can put those two things together, and, as Jim Gaffigan once said, it's just "nasty crap"?

Yes, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but it's seldom one we enjoy.  And for good reason.  Because when we think of a good, "healthy" breakfast, we seldom think of the official deities of the food pyramid--your fruits, veggies, and grains, if you will (assuming Michelle Obama hasn't done away with the pyramid altogether).  We think of pyramids made out of pancakes, lathered with butter and adorned with grease-covered meats cut straight from the hog's ass itself.

Yes, I do realize my choice of language is nausea fuel.  Why do you ask?

Breakfast, contrary to its firmly-entrenched perch at the start of our day, is the excrement of our three square meals.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in such choice "meals" as the breakfast pizza, which I had the unpleasant experience of being given this morning.  It was a boxed pizza which a buddy picked up from our local gas station.  One could see the grease stains on the box when we went to grab our slices, meaning it had all the nutritional value of regular pizza with none of the redeeming qualities, such as the sauce, the cheese, the pepperoni, and...really, that's about all I actually like about pizza.

Unfortunately, this sub-par class of food seems to have a Stalin-esque hold over any meals we might order before 11:00.  Think I'm wrong?  Then tell me, why can't you order a decent burger or fries at your McDonald's before 11:00?  (I could be wrong, considering Adam Sandler couldn't seem to get his Hot Cakes and Sausage after 10:30 or so.)  Why is it that our fast food restaurants are monopolized by such monstrosities as breakfast menus when you first wake up?  Why is it that I ended up having to smell the Egg McMuffin on the classmate sitting behind me for the better part of an hour?

If it makes you feel better, I haven't totally dismissed breakfast just yet.  I've taken to eating an apple every day when I first get up.  (That, and maybe a Dixie cup's worth of pop.  Hey, I gotta wake up somehow.)  If you're curious about that exercise routine of mine, it's been relegated to an "every-other-day" schedule.  Because, every other other day, it's a pain doing so much as waking up in the morning.  I don't know what's going to happen to my desire to exercise once I start going to work every day at 8 o'clock.

*Edit:  Amy Chua on the Colbert Report right now.  Should probably be watching that instead of typing this.

Note:  That link to the Adam Sandler video has a really bad cuss word in it.  As in, one of the big seven words you shouldn't...you clicked on it already, didn't you?  You unbelievable jackhammer doglicker.

Hide The Kids...

Apparently the "blogosphere" has been abuzz discussing the whole "Tiger Mom" situation, which means I probably need to say something.

The uproar started with a Wall Street Journal article featuring Amy Chua, titled, "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior."  The article consists of an excerpt--or supposedly, an "extract"--from her new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom.

The article emphasizes the difference between us lazy, Wii-obsessed, fast-food-loving Americans and our feel-good, New Age parents, and Chinese/Korean/just generally Asian parents, who are achievement-oriented and work their kids like drill instructors to get them into Yale.  In fact, the enclosed passage speaks for itself:

"Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called 'The Little White Donkey' by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms.

"Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.  'Get back to the piano now,' I ordered.  [...]

"Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have 'The Little White Donkey' perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, 'I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?'

"I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.  [...]

"I used every weapon and tactic I could think of.  We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts."

Forever plastered on the article page is a choice selection from the comments section, as one James Post states, "I am in disbelief after reading this article."  Another wonderful piece of dialogue is given to us by Diron Tappin, who writes, "Parenting is the only thing people do once or twice and think they are an expert at it." 

Critics, while obviously voicing their concerns about Chua's parenting methods, have also begun debating the notable racial differences in academic performance, especially with a growing number of Asians enrolling in top schools.

In response to all of this, Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, one of Amy's daughters and supposedly traumatized tiger cubs, wrote a letter in the New York Times to her mother while retaliating against her critics.  She takes a moment to clear the air by telling everyone that a lot of what we read in the Journal article was...well, a joke. 

Because, you see, when an Asian woman jokes about driving her daughter to starvation and near-insanity over piano lessons, us dumb, uneducated, bar-hoppin', NASCAR-racing, Twitter-addicted Americans have no sense of humor beyond fart and boob jokes, and we're all gonna hide the kids, hide the wives, and hide the husbands while we call the cops on her.  (While I'm still on this train of thought, I wonder how many "wives" and "husbands" are police...oh, crap...)

Sophia's letter to the editor goes on to say that while "having you as a mother was no tea party," she also admits that her Tiger Mama's tough love made her the strong, independent young woman she is today, and at the end of the day, they're all still family.

It probably needs to be said that both articles may or may not have been planted by someone other than the supposed author.  Much in the same way that Jerry Springer gives us supposedly "random" audience members telling their latest neo-Nazi guest's sister (and wife) to "COVER UP FO' I THROW UP!", this article may or may not have been planted by...

Go ahead, guess!

...by Fox.  Yes, freaking Fox.  They're at it again.

According to one article on OriginalSpin.com, Rupert Murdoch (or a close associate of his, at the least) copy-pasted the most questionable lines from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother into the Wall Street Journal article, resulting in...well, that clusterfuck of parenting literature I just copy-pasted above.  Now this is probably just hearsay, but the source of the article's source's source says that this whole monstrous affair can be traced to "the very top" of the hierarchy of News Corp, which owns both the Journal and the New York Post.

Granted, Occam's Razor states that there is no substitute for human stupidity, nor is there a more likely alternative than someone from another country--or at least presumably a second or third-generation immigrant--failing to appreciate the cultural nuances of child-rearing, or make note of a simple thing like child abuse rubbing us dumb Americans the wrong way.

Unless, of course, we simply go by the old adage that Fox is evil.  And, by the transitive property, so is its owner.

Note:  The opinions of the Brewsky do not represent those of Fox News or its affiliates.  And, frankly, neither does the prospect of a 16-year-old girl writing a letter to her mother in the New York Times.  Seriously, who does that?

Head On; Show Directly on NBC

Brian Williams, I have no clue what's going on here!
Brian Williams, I have no clue what's going on here!
Brian Williams, I have no clue what's going on here!

Brian Williams can be seen weeknights at 6:30/5:30C on the NBC Nightly News nationwide.

Thumbs Up for Justice

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., here's a video from...oh, hell, I don't know what this is for.  Honestly, I've just been wanting to post it for a long time, and I realize my timing might be off, but I'm just better off doing it now before I forget.

I think we can all agree that the Reverend would have taken a stance against the rapist in question if he were alive today.

I think he has a real future in music.

You Can Still Work Out By Watching TV (and Otherwise Just Messing Around At Home)!

I'm sure most of you out there made some kind of resolution to ring in the New Year.  Personally, I made several.  First, I made a resolution to keep it real, even if I do work at a gas station for minimum wage and I'm in desperate need of funds to pay off my student loans.  I also made a resolution to stop hitting people; Mom says I should probably just try to be a better person, but I told her, "We've got to do this in baby steps.  It's a New Year's resolution, not a Christmas miracle."

Like many people, I'm also in dire need of exercise.  So I made a New Year's resolution to get into shape, to work off some of those Christmas pounds and get some muscle tone.

Naturally, one starts by trying some light cardio.  Which basically amounts to jogging.  I set aside some time--it could be an hour, a half-hour, twenty minutes--usually when I get up.  The doctor recommends eating a little something before moving into warm-ups and other exercise routines; a full breakfast isn't a great idea, but something like a piece of fruit or a granola bar helps give you the energy you need to wake yo' self up in the morning.

This jogging routine lasted about three days.  Then I moved back into the dorms, where there isn't really any good spot to do warm-ups.  Plus, it's cold as hell outside!  Have you been out there today?  If the temperature is in the single digits, it's a sure sign that you should just stay in bed.

Now, many of you are probably wondering, "Well, doesn't your school have a gym?"  Well, yes, actually it does.  But, again, the doctor says exercises are best accomplished in the morning, right when you first wake up.  Guess which college gym isn't open at seven or eight in the morning.  This is a really, really stupid college.

And then, by the time the gym actually is open, you're either in class, at a newspaper club meeting, hanging out with friends, doing homework, working the crank shaft at the gas station, or eating.  (Or, if you're anything like me, you're watching the same video over and over again...)  Even if I decided to start an exercise routine later in the day, it would mean setting aside that time in the day, needing to get showered later on, and then before you know it, it's time for bed.  And I still have to get showered in the morning (just because).

Luckily, it turns out it's still possible to get a good workout even when you're in bed.  According to WikiHow, you can work the abs not only without having to worry about the technicals of those annoying things called sit-ups, you can also do it without even getting out of bed in the morning.  The trick is to hold your legs up at a slight angle from the bed, with a starting position at a ninety-degree angle.  The linked article goes into more detail about this exercise, but suffice to say, I plan on adding it to my morning routine.

The article, of course, also stresses the importance of a proper diet and additional exercises above and beyond, saying, holding your legs up in bed.  We'll see if that happens any time soon.  Like I said, baby steps.

"I'm Just a Bill"

I'm like a dog.  I have my highs and my lows, but when I have my highs, I'm really high, and when I have my lows, I might as well be in hell.  When I'm happy, I end up chasing cars, chewing endlessly on a bone, or watching the same video over and over and over again.  When I'm sad, I dwell on it, and soon I end up writing something no man was meant to write.

And when I'm mad, I dwell on it, and pretty soon I start hatching a plan to rid the world of this menace known as Republicans (whether through legal means, or through a coup.  Le coup de grâce.).

You might remember some time before Christmas when the Republicans chose to stall a bill meant to aid 9/11 workers suffering from 9/11-related injuries in a desperate and monstrous political ploy to pass the Bush tax cuts.  I mean, it's one thing to argue in favor of...well, anything "Bush"-related.  But more than forty Senators--really, anything more than "zero" Senators is unbelievable--actively decided to keep much-needed medical care from some of our nation's finest heroes.  That takes some balls.

Some issues become apparent in the analysis of the tax issue, though.  The first issue is that nobody really knows what the Bush tax cuts are supposed to accomplish.  I don't know what they're supposed to do.  The Republicans probably don't know what they're supposed to do.  I'm not sure the President knows what the tax cuts are supposed to do. 

The former President (and former Texas rodeo clown) probably doesn't know what the tax cuts were supposed to do either, only commenting if "they woulda called it something other than the Bush tax cuts [...] there'd probably be less angst among some to pass it."  After all, it's not like the Bush tax cuts were actually passed during the Bush administration (unless anywhere between 2000 and 2009 counts).

The main point of contention is the compromise reached between Democrats and Republicans last month, in which the cuts were extended for two more years.  Obama was pushing to extend the cuts for income levels below $200,000 ($250,000 for couples), while Republicans wanted all the cuts to be extended, including everyone above those income levels.  So really, everyone wins!

According to the WhiteHouse.gov, working families experienced $3,000 in revenue which would have otherwise been paid out in income taxes.  (Assuming you can call that "revenue.")  These cuts include a 2% decrease in payroll taxes.  So for a worker earning $60,000 a year, this means an additional $1,200 in "revenue."  And for a worker earning $120,000 a year, this adds up to $2,400 in "revenue"!  And for someone earning a million dollars a year, that spells $20,000 in additional "revenue" dollars!  Just imagine!  Twenty thousand dollars a year (for millionaires)!

The agreement reached on the tax cuts also include breaks on the estate tax.  So, for those of you out there who have stumbled on an inheritance, you'll be seeing more money come in.  The Making Work Pay tax credit, meant to aid families with students enrolled in college, was also lost in the tax legislation during the lame duck session.

The second issue surrounding this whole debacle is, apparently our country has this little thing (if billions of dollars can be considered "little") called a "deficit," which we've wracked up over the years--specifically, the years from 2000 to 2009, when a certain former Texas rodeo clown was running the country.  It's either the Democrats increasing spending, or the Republicans cutting taxes...and increasing spending.  Or, on the ground level, it's either tax breaks for the middle class, or tax breaks for corporations and high-income families. 

It's like having your cake, and eating it too.  Except you can't physically do that.  So instead, we're trying to take what cake we can get while spending cake we don't actually have (usually it's someone else's cake).  And also, we don't get to eat any of it.

The third issue to point out is a matter of logistics--specifically, the logistics of trying to get the approved $4.3 billion enclosed in the James Zadroga bill to the 9/11 workers who need it the most.  Word on the blogosphere--and by "blogosphere" I mean some random commenter I caught the other day, possibly a troll but still not something I want to discount simply because of my political leaning--is that the local level of New York is bogged with corrupt and incompetent officials.  And where corruption and incompetence go, money such as the funds approved for 9/11 workers also magically disappears.  (Unfortunately, Batman is not around to make such corrupt, incompetent officials disappear as well.)

Plus, as more cynical observers might point out, some of that money might also go to faking fakers who are faking being our nation's heroes in order to get that money.  And immigrants.  After all, if they're sick, they should be able to pull themselves up by their own boot straps.

But you know wage earners like them don't do that.  They just pull other people up by their boot straps.  And out of burning buildings.

If you'll excuse me, I need some Prozac in the worst way.

Note:  Consult your doctor before taking any sort of antidepressant.  You should not take Prozac if you are pregnant, over sixty-five, and have a low blood-to-alcohol ratio like The Brewsky does.  Side effects include deck rot, A.D.H.Dead, low tires, and onamonepaeia.

Sticks and Stones

In case you're curious, I did actually run into this piece on Captain Honors yesterday when I was looking up Mind's Eye.  I just didn't really feel like commenting on it.

For those of you who haven't heard, either through Google magic or The Daily Show, the aptly-named Captain Owen Honors has more-or-less been discharged as the captain of the naval vessel U.S.S. Enterprise following an investigation into an offensive series of videos he created using military equipment.  Or, as AOL has taken to calling them, "movies."

One of the videos, which is presumably a commentary on the various "movie nights" Honors has run for his men, can be seen here.  And as I watch it, I wonder quietly to myself, "What's the big freaking deal?"  After some colorful cips (including a retrospective on the F-word, a montage dedicated to masturbation, and a shower scene with...heaven forbid...two chicks!), our captain proceeds to get drowned out by Starship as he disclaims responsibility on the part of his superiors.  Then we get to see...*gasp!*...sailors dancing!?  Well, I never!!

The video then proceeds into the Aerosmith montage glimpsed on the latest episode of Jon Stewart, complete with one of our finest naval officers eating what I can only hope is a Baby Ruth bar out of the toilet.  All of the raunchier stuff is blurred out by The Virginia-Pilot, but featured prominently in the last half of the video is what I can only assume is the captain's pet parrot, before (and after) its suicide attempt.  There are also some chicks in the shower, an...anal exam?...and a special appearance by...Glenn Close!  Say it ain't so!

Frankly, this whole affair warrants far less attention than the media has given it, but one note I'd like to make is that "XO" (which is apparently the name our captain goes by in his videos) speaks through his three multiple personalities, including the douchebag sitting to his right who is apparently straight out of Top Gun.  His use of the word "fag" is therefore representative of his own negative personality traits, much in the same way that the N-word is representative of the negative traits of slave owners.

Which, as you might guess, brings us to the Huckleberry Finn censorship scandal.  In case you haven't heard, NewSouth Books is publishing a school-friendly version of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," which has excised the over 200 uses of the N-word in place of the word "slave."  Proponents of this move, in addition to considering the use of the N-word to be offensive, also acknowledge that the use of the edited version is a necessary evil in order to reach a larger audience.  Critics point out that not only is this plain and simple censorship, but it renders any honest discussion on the evils of slavery an impossibility.

Notable is one piece on CNN.com by the author of "Black American Money" and a spokesperson for black America, who argues against the use of a word that has such power to hurt:  "Long before I became a scholar, I was a black teenage boy. At that time, I would never have enjoyed hearing my English teacher repeat the n-word 219 times out loud in front of a class full of white students. I also would have wondered why African-Americans are the only ethnic group forced to read "classic" literature that uses such derogatory language toward us in a disturbingly repetitive way.

"Although the brilliance of the Mark Twain novel must be acknowledged, students can and should be engaged in constructive ways to learn what happened to their ancestors without being subjected to racial slurs in the process."

Huh.  You know, as much as I value free speech, I don't know how to tell a black man on the receiving end of the N-word that he's wrong.  And knowing how well we uphold the First Amendment in this country, I don't see this stopping until the edited version of Twain's classic has been made available and has become a staple of cirricula across the country.

One quick note, though.  NewSouth Books is a Montgomery-based publishing company which has given us such titles as "Alabama:  One Big Front Porch", and "The Other Side of Montgomery:  Growing Up White In the Civil Rights Movement."  It's enough to give a guy diabetes, especially considering Rosa Parks could have died on that freaking bus.

Mind's Eye

A group of research teams has been contracted by the military to develop sophisticated, unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance devices.  Specifically, they are trying to computerize ground surveillance, which up until now has been the bread and butter of James Bond.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has been charged with contracting the research teams, has stressed the importance of such a system, which would require the computerized system to visually process information at the ground level.  They claim to be "addressing this problem with Mind's Eye, a program aimed at developing a visual intelligence capability for unmanned systems."  The research teams include more than a dozen university-based departments, as well as a trio of private companies who are looking into the software required for an "unmanned ground vehicle."

In so many words, the Mind's Eye system would be capable of doing what only humans have been capable of until Ahnold traveled back to before Judgment Day and showed us meatbags how it's done.  Truly something "strait [sic] out of the Terminator movies," its applications include "opening doors and drawers," as well as disarming bombs and tracking moving objects (machine or otherwise).  DARPA has already begun looking into a "perch-and-stare" monitoring system, which entails the creation of self-piloted surveillance devices traveling into enemy territory and monitoring them terroristsumbssobitches.

As you might have guessed, this means we're only a few decades away from this:




Note:  Why is there a little mushroom robot on my screen...oh no.

Good Old Country Kitchen

Have you ever caught someone at the wrong place and the wrong time?  Well, I live with her.

I’ve been staying back at the house for the past couple weeks since getting out of class.  Meaning, I’ve been staying with my mom for the past couple weeks.  Meaning, eventually, I’m going to catch her at the wrong place and time.

Now, we’re both good, God-fearing Christians and all, but we were both raised to despise the Christmas season with a passion.  Mom doesn’t enjoy having to buy presents for every Tom, Dick, and Harry in her extended network of friends, family, co-workers, and the guy who occasionally mows our lawn (he’s built up an immunity to the poison ivy in our yard).  And I’m just not wild about Santa Claus and decorating in general (having built up an immunity to the Christmas spirit the moment I met Santa Claus—if that is his real name).  Neither of us enjoys the icy roads, or the cold weather, or the shuttling between ten different Christmas parties in these icy roads or that cold weather.

I’m assuming this is about the busy holidays we’ve had.  Either that, or the fact that both of our cars have basically broken down.  Or it’s just her time of the month—she had been complaining about cramps.  I don’t really know what this is about, I can only guess at why she snapped.  One thing my ex-girlfriend probably learned in a hurry is that I skipped those classes in Empathy and Charisma, so as you can imagine, it’s easy for me to miss these nuances in the heat of the moment.

It started when I went to the bathroom.  I had gone to Country Kitchen my last meal, as we always do whenever we ring in the new year, or Christmas, or any non-denominational holiday, or whenever we’re really happy, or really sad, or really hungry, or really thirsty, or whenever it’s a nice day, and occasionally when it’s a dark and stormy night, because apparently my extended family makes a hobby out of eating bacon/omelette/chicken/onion/fried/breaded/charbroiled/microwaved sandwiches with people thirty to forty years older than us.  So naturally, I made use of toilet paper and baby wipes.

Now, there are three things to understand.  First, our toilet isn’t the best.  Second, baby wipes aren’t bio-degradable, which I would appreciate our public schools teaching us.  Our teachers instruct and test us on material concerning the Inquisition, or Mark Twain, or geometry, or the chemical number for calcium, or calculus, or the principles of socio-economics, but they can’t teach us things we might need to know in our day-to-day lives.  (And then we wonder why so many kids drop out.)

Mom says that not flushing certain things down the toilet is “common sense.”  But if toilet paper can go down the toilet, then why not hydrated material of similar density?  We know to draw the line at things like logs, or bricks, or asparagus, or blocks of cheese.  Or toys.  (Although a grade school buddy of mine once flushed his sister’s doll down the toilet, not realizing Bikini Barbie might clog it up.)  But who thinks of something as miniscule as wipes not being able to flush?

The third thing to consider is that while we have a trash can in the bathroom, stuff like that will stink up the trash can—and ultimately the bathroom—until our friendly neighborhood garbage man comes.  So, I weighed my options, seesawing between leaving it in the trash can, or flushing it down the all-consuming black hole and being done with it.  Now, I have clogged the toilet before, which is why we make more liberal use of the trash can (or just flush a couple of times in between wipes), but I thought to myself, “What harm could baby wipes possibly do?”

Well, Mom found out when she went in, and then before I know it, I hear, “What the hell did you put in there!!??”

It turns out the all-consuming black hole doesn’t consume all; something as simple as baby wipes can resist its gravitational pull.

Now, I put forth a reasonable argument about the similarities between toilet paper and baby wipes, and how such a misconception concerning the degradability of the latter is inevitable in such circumstances.  But when she asked me why “you didn’t use any fucking common sense,” something about her condescension brought out of me a reply along the lines of “I DIDN’T KNOW!!!”

As you can see above, the number of exclamation points are the degrees from my indoor voice.  Normally I use my indoor voice, and I especially use it around Mom, which probably caught her off guard.  Somehow, though, Mom managed to one-up me, screaming back, “Don’t you yell at me!  Don’t you DARE YELL AT ME!!!!!”

Now, neither of us have really yelled at each other, and I always figured our first actual argument would be over something a bit more important than freaking baby wipes.  However, her above ultimatum triggered in me a need to make my point to an exhausted, car-less, emotionally-disturbed opposite.  Which came out as, “Well, you’re ACTING LIKE IT’S THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD!!!!!!111”

Mom finally decided to make an appeal to logic.  Either that, or she was just really, really pissed that “We DON’T HAVE A FUCKING TOILET BECAUSE YOU CLOGGED IT!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111”

And then I remembered, “Oh, right, because we can’t afford a plumber.  Because we’re broke.  Because our cars both need fixed.  And we can’t leave this God forsaken house.”

Needless to say, the whole experience has left a bitter taste in my mouth.  She apologized, and I apologized, because we both realized how stupid it was and how we let our tempers get the better of us.

She also made some chicken noodle soup for supper.  Naturally, I’m not all that hungry.

*Edit:  It does, in fact, say on the box that you're not supposed to flush baby wipes.  It says this in very small letters.  In the middle of a wall of instructions on the back of the box.  So, yeah, easy to miss that.

And yes, apparently, baby wipes have instructions.