Hey Kids, Let’s Have a Sing-Along!!!

Okay, I’d like to say now I’ve seen everything but something tells me that the hits will just keep on coming. How ironic that it is strictly forbidden to sing songs in school that directly praise God (God forbid) and there are plenty who either don’t want the Pledge of Allegiance said at all (or at least to remove the ‘one nation under God’ part – so wrong don’t you know) but yet it’s A-okay for kids to sing songs praising our new leader Bama-Hero. Don’t believe me? Check out the video.

Nice, eh? And since the vid quality isn’t so good and in case you missed some of the lyrics, here they are:

Song 1

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

Song 2

Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say “hooray!”

Hooray, Mr. President! You’re number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!

Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans
To make this country’s economy number one again!

Hooray Mr. President, we’re really proud of you!
And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!

So continue —- Mr. President we know you’ll do the trick
So here’s a hearty hip-hooray —-

Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!

And before any of you out there say, ‘oh it’s not so bad, or it’s kind of sweet’ imagine what you’d be saying if the songs were about George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan and then hold your tongue.

Aside from this being completely weird and somewhat reminiscent of a previous leader who liked school kids to sing about him and wear brown shirts, it’s an obvious ploy to indoctrinate kids before they even really know how to think. Talk about trying to develop a voting bloc early – it’s just so wrong.

Fox News got this feedback from the school system and if you follow the link, you can read the whole story.

The commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Education ordered a review on Friday following the posting of a YouTube video depicting school children singing the praises of President Obama.

In a statement to FOXNews.com, Education Department spokeswoman Beth Auerswald said Commissioner Lucille Davy has directed the school’s superintendent to review the matter. Auerswald said Davy wants to ensure that students can celebrate Black History Month without “inappropriate partisan politics in the classroom.”

“In addition, it is our understanding the teacher in question retired at the end of the last school year,” the statement continued.

Auerswald declined to indicate exactly what the review would entail or possible ramifications.

As critics of the video claimed it amounted to “indoctrination,” the tension at B. Bernice Young Elementary School escalated to such a degree Thursday that the school was placed temporarily on lockdown after its principal received death threats over a YouTube video that showed nearly 20 children being taught songs lauding the president, though back-to-school night events continuing as planned Thursday night at the school.

Boy when that dude said change, he wasn’t kidding, was he?

WC

Beware!

So, the other day I turned on my cell phone (I only turn it on when I’m going to call someone or when I’m driving, in case there is an emergency) and I saw that I had a bunch of text messages. This was odd, since I don’t send text messages and only get them if Verizon has some dumb new thing they want me to buy from them.

So, I pull them up and they are from this company . Joke a day, text messages? Are you kidding? I erased them all and went about my business, only to get another a few seconds later. Annoyed. I went to the Verizon website to see if I could block these suckers and couldn’t figure it out. So I called the 800 number.

While I was waiting, I decided to check my account details and lo and behold what do I see? A charge for $10 for a text message. So, when I get on the phone with the rep at Verizon, I find out that they can’t reverse the charges because I’ve subscribed to some service.

Of course this is bullshit, since I don’t subscribe to crap like this and I NEVER give my cell phone to companies, much less one like this. The Verizon rep gives the company’s 800 number where I finally get through to a rep who explains that I subscribed to a service. I explain to her that I didn’t subscribe to any such thing and I want my money back. She explains that the number I’ve called is the parent company and the company that charged me is a sister company, but they no longer exist. What? But she’ll give me another 800 number to call to see if I can cancel my subscription.

I lose it and tell her once again I didn’t subscribe and that I shouldn’t have to chase down phantom companies to give back money they had no right to take. Bottom line, she won’t help me, so I give her a good dose of insults and hang up.

I called Verizon back and explained the situation to yet another Verizon rep and she was very helpful and explained that somehow someone had gotten my number and the company debited my phone, just like a merchant would from an atm card and that the company had to give it back. She tracked down the number and gave me the website. I tried the phone and I couldn’t even hear the recording so I went to the website and filled out a form demanding my money back.

I have little hope that they will do the right thing and return my money. And writing the complaint to them did little to relieve my angst and writing this post probably won’t do much for it either – but at least you can be warned about them.

Also, the Verizon rep told me another thing that really freaked me out. Though i had them block text messages on my account, she said when it comes to premium text messages that the blocking is useless. They can still do it. So, it seems my choice is to chuck this phone and get another one. It’s a shame but in the end I may have to do it.

What I can’t figure out though is how they got my cell number. Literally, only about 10 people have it. I can’t imagine any of them giving it to something like this or doing this as some sort of practical joke – not funny.

I’m telling you there is no justice in the world. I know I’m out of luck and if I get any sort of response it will be bull and they will not give me my money back because that’s how this sort of company works. It’s not even the money so much as the violation of privacy. I feel like somebody sneaked into my house and took something from me without my consent. It sucks.

So, there you have it. Another good reason to not text – aside from carpal tunnel thumbs and losing the ability to spell properly.

WC

Twisters

I grew up in the Midwest. We didn’t have hurricanes or earthquakes or locusts. But we did have tornadoes. And let me tell you something, there hasn’t been an earthquake or rainstorm I’ve ever witnessed that can scare the bageebers out of me, like a tornado can.

The thing about twisters are that you never know where they will touch down. You can see one off in the distance that looks like it’s going right then it tricks you and goes left. It can look like it’s moving away from you and then come right at you. It can flatten your neighbor’s house and leave yours standing without so much as a loosened board. It can suck up and carry anything in its path.

I remember when I was a kid the odd reports we would hear during tornado season. A woman, cooking in her kitchen was sucked into a twister when it blew off the roof of her house. It touched down and dropped her off (without injury) 20 miles away. Farmers had cows sucked up out of their pastures and left at the next town. A family of four were driving down the interstate and the twister picked them up, car and all and dropped them off 100 miles later. Bizarre, Twilight Zone kind of stuff.

It is a natural phenom that is unlike any other I’ve ever seen. The air takes on this really still and heavy quality – as though all living creatures have caught their collective breaths. As though, you are suddenly in a vacuum.

When it looks really bad, people are advised to turn off everything and to head down to the basement to seek shelter. That may be why there are basements in that neck of the woods. Underground panic rooms, where you sit and wait and listen to the newscast and you try to play cards and not be scared but you are anyway. I remember many times, sitting in a quiet basement with my family, no one talking or doing, just listening and waiting.

We had a family friend named, Marge. A great lady who had a beautiful Victorian house on Lake St. Claire. I used to love to go to her house because she always had watermelon and potato salad and you could sit on her big porch and eat, as the breeze from the lake rustled your hair. There was a peaceful quality about her property and her house. It was like a big, friendly hug, that you always loved to have.
We had many, many visits to Marge’s over the years and it is truly one of my fondest childhood memories.

But one year, we had a lot of tornadoes. They would hit suddenly, knocking down whole blocks of homes sometimes. And believe me, there isn’t much left behind – it looks like a giant box of toothpicks was dumped out on the lot. Sadly, Marge’s house was hit by one of those evil funnels of wind and centrifugal force. The beautiful white house with the dark blue shutters and the wind-around porch – nothing but splinters. Marge was okay – she made it to safety and no harm or injury occurred, but the house was gone. She didn’t rebuild as we thought she might. Instead, she moved to another state and I never saw her again. Never sat on her porch eating watermelon and potato salad, never felt that lovely lake breeze again. And I never forgave the twister for that, nor will I ever.

Here in California, we got your earthquakes and sometimes pretty bad rainstorms, but I’d take them anyday over a twister. They don’t call them twisters for nothing. And they still scare the bageebers outta me.

What’s your scariest natural disaster?

WC

Can You Say, Mucho Dinero?

I just got this in an email from a friend. The following pics show the ‘finds’ at a drug bust of Mexican drug dealers. I couldn’t resist posting them here.

 

Believe it or not – there were several more – but I guess you get the picture. My friend speculated that they’d just paid off Mexico’s national debt. I’d say that and possibly the purchase of a couple of small countries.

Wow, don’t you just love capitalism?

WC

PS: The sad thing though is that all that money represents drugs coursing through somebody’s system. Gives you pause, eh?

You’re Not the Boss of Me

 

I had a very interesting conversation with an employee the other day. This particular employee has been giving me a hard time since day one and really drives me up the wall.

It started as a dispute over an error on her timecard – I’d shorted her a half hour. I told her so, after she complained and offered to cut her a check right then and there or to add it to her next paycheck. She insisted it was more than that, and essentially I wasted an hour teaching her math so she could understand, in fact, it was a half an hour. Now this girl is a medical assistant and can’t seem to do basic math. Are we alarmed yet?

Of course, the conversation didn’t end there – oh no, there were many things that had to be discussed. Temper tantrums and flashes of anger, which I advised her to knock off and she did sort of…

As the time ticked off and essentially I was being paid to deal with this whining girl and she was being paid to whine to me, we got to the crux of the matter. She informed me that she was taking two vacations over the next 8 weeks. Two vacations???? This girl hasn’t even worked here a year, and has taken one week already to go to Hawaii and a long weekend to go to Vegas. Apparently there is a family reunion and a cruise she absolutely must go to.

Now, look, I don’t like to spoil people’s fun and I don’t really mind trying to work something out so people can go to things like family reunions and so forth. But give me a break – she expects to be given off essentially four weeks during the a course of 9 months employment. Call me crazy but I’ve never worked anywhere that would give that kind of time off in such a short employment.

And the kicker is, that she didn’t ask me. She told me. Like, “Oh, by the way, I’m taking these dates and these dates off. I have a family thing and then I’m going on a cruise.”

Eh? I asked her if she could take them at the same time, schedule them back to back so it would only be one leave. Oh no, can’t do that. Because her boyfriend is paying for it. When asked if she could persuade her boyfriend to schedule the cruise right before or right after the reunion, she said “I can’t afford to take that much time off at once.” Excuse me?

She can’t afford to take that much time off. So what? I’m supposed to be worried about her finances while she throws the practice into mayhem because she’s leaving on her little trips? She doesn’t have anyone who is coming to cover her, nope, she figures her supervisor can just cover for her during her absence.

So, I say, “Well if your supervisor can cover you during your absence, then why do I need two medical assistants?” You know? Why? If the supervisor can do all the work that needs to be done, what the hell is she doing?

Ooops, no answer for that one. Nope, she has to think about that. Kind of like her math problem, she just doesn’t know the answer. She just knows that she wants what she wants and she’s going to tell me and I’m going to do it.

“You’re not the boss of me, ” I tell her. “It may come as a shock, but I’m actually the boss of  you. And I just don’t know if we can give you the time off. Sorry.”

“Well, what are you going to do,”she asks. “Fire me?”

I smiled wryly and left the room.

You know, she’s been awfully nice to me since then. Let’s see if that lasts.

WC

What’s in a Name?

 

This was too good, not to post. H.T. to court reporter chick for this one. Enjoy!

All of these are legitimate companies that didn’t spend quite enough time considering how their online names might appear .. and be misread.

These are not made up. Check them out yourself

1. “Who Represents” is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity.  Their Web site is www.whorepresents.com (I’m thinky some lacey lingerie)

2 . Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at  www.expertsexchange.com (they say that change is good, right?)

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net (I think I know some people who shop here)

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com (this could be helpful to those profiler guys)

5. There’s the Italian Power Generator company, www.powergenitalia.com (I know they say Italians are the best lovers but…)

6. And don’t forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in www.molestationnursery.com (those poor plants, imagine the trauma)

7. If you’re looking for IP computer software, there’s always www.ipanywhere.com (lol – me too, anybody going to make a diaper joke here?)

8. The First Cumming Methodist Church Web site is  www.cummingfirst.com (so much for abstinence)

9. And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky Web site, www.speedofart.com (I didn’t know that speedos could fart) 

So the moral to this story is choose your names wisely and get good proofreaders! 😉  WC

Fatal Attraction

It has never ceased to amaze me, that no matter what my fantasy is, I’m not theirs. Know what I mean?

Perhaps it is Murphy’s Law, but why is it the only thing chasing me, makes me run as fast as possible to the nearest police station? I’m saying. 😉

WC

Bastard!

 

Okay, so this weekend was kind of odd and surreal. The weather was like something out of an Emily Bronte novel – in fact, I could almost hear Cathy and Heathcliff whispering to each other – so I immediately went into a sort of hibernation-stasis mode.

To my delight, my friend J was in town and we had dinner and some great conversation and were up til all hours. I caught up on some posts and reading and things seemed, well…okay.

Then I decided to drag my sorry ass out to put gas in the car because of course, I didn’t want to try that on Monday morning. What did my eyes see? Broken tail light glass shattered in the middle of the street. I thought, I better pick that up because I don’t want to drive over that. Which I did…and then some little voice said, oh-oh. I didn’t want to, no, I really didn’t but I walked back to look at the back of my car. There is was – a big gash and broken tail light. My beautiful car has been hit and then they ran.

Bastard, bastard, bastard all to hell! Shit, damn, fuck! I cried a little because my beautiful car had been marred. It was perfect and now it isn’t. No note. No, I’m sorry. No, nothing. Sonofagun!

Roomie helped me retrieve as many of the pieces as we could and is as we speak out there with handyman-guy trying to put the pieces back together. It could be worse, yah, it certainly could be worse – but damn!

Because I didn’t see anything the only thing the police would do is take a phone report for the insurance company. Yeah, like I’m going to tell them about it. Sigh. It’s always something. Crap! Please God, let the tail light still work and just have the cover need replacing. And please God, let my mechanic know some body shop guy who can fix it without it being too painfully expensive. And thank you God, for letting the auto parts place be open so I could buy that stupid red tape to cover it up for now.

I guess that $200 filling is going to have to wait, eh?

Like I said, it could have been worse and I’m thankful it wasn’t too bad. Now, I guess my car is like me – kind of pretty but definitely flawed.

WC

A Lovely Day In The Neighborhood

 

Okay, so I’m having breffy with Zelda the other day and we’re talking about her dogs…truth be told we’re always talking about her dogs or her cats or her plants. She’s really into the animal kingdom.

Anyway, she decided to take them for a walk the other night which was naturally a bit of a funny disaster. The big dawg (huggy) got away from her to play with a little chihuahua that her Korean neighbors were walking. Apparently there were a few seconds where little chi-chi was flying like a trout on the leash but that’s another story.  So, while big dawg was doing that Lexy (beagle number 1) was just running – anywhere. I guess she ran til she got tired and Zelda found her panting by the side of the road.

Then there is beagle number 2 – a chubby little tri-color who is really a real life version of Deputy Dog. You gotta love him. But he won’t walk. He is afraid of the outside. Literally – no kidding. So Zelda carried him – all 35 lbs of him. You got the picture? Big dawg flailing and going after little chichi like a piece of bait, first beagle just running and Zelda trotting behind carrying second beagle.

So, solution? Dog trainer? Nope? Walk the dogs separately? Nope? Dog Whisperer? Nope. You ready???? She’s getting beagle number 2 a stroller.

Oh yeah, they make strollers for dogs. I can’t wait to see it and I promise I’ll post a picture as soon as I do. Talk about your gullible boomer. Zelda! What are you thinking? 😉

WC

The Magic of Chalk

Beerman, the chalk artist has more amazing entries I just had to share:

and

and

and

I think my favorite is the one with Batman – but hey I wouldn’t kick any of them out of the neighborhood. It never ceases to amaze me how much a true artist can do with so little. Incredible. Bravo I say!

WC