John Edwards’ Poverty Lesson, When You Get Caught, Raise Your Prices

According to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times, John Edwards has decided to reemerge from his seclusion and go back on the public speaking circuit. He also decided to raise his speaking rates to $65,000, up from the more previous $55,000. That’s a lot of money to talk about poverty. Or maybe the cost of maintaining his own household and that of paramour, Rielle Hunter, is more than he anticipated. So much hush money and so little time.

I have always been suspicious of Aw Shucks, Self-Effacing people who in every obvious endeavor show nothing but ambition bordering on megalomania. I mean, how serious can you be about the modesty thing when you want to make a few hundred million and run for President of the United States. In John Edward’s case, we not only have all the self effacing play acting, we have it out of slick goober boy, the crusader against poverty with the $1,250 haircut. Must cost a lot to look the part, so people will believe you are really serious about poverty. In Edwards case, there are two Americas. Supercuts and his $1,250 newscaster’s special.

Edwards looks bad in his jeans. I am suspicious of guys who never look right in jeans but persist on wearing them to look hip or young or like one of the people they are trying to win over. With more than a few, jeans just don’t become them. I don’t know if it’s the cut, their bellies, hips and behinds, or if the belt looks wrong with the shirt. Something. Always something looks askew.

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But most of all, when Edwards calls for greater accountability and swears he is a man of family values, etc., and all the rest. When asked during the debates what his faults are. Does he answer honestly? Does he tell the world he likes to fool around on the side and there is just something about Rielle Hunter that has so lassoed his stem cells he had a baby with her? Naw. He tells during the debates that this greatest fault is his loving America too darn much. Well golly.

Then when he is accused of the affair, he denies it. He pulls a Larry Craig on us. He then emerges from his inclusion goes back on the stump. He is ready again to give his all about poverty. He is ready to get paid for telling us that poverty, indeed, is bad for us. He is ready to confess, I suppose, about his misdeeds and lack of judgement. He is ready. Are we? Or will we just watch the the rerun on Jerry Springer?

Fuel Prices Send American Workers Below the Border

I noticed this article in the San Diego Union-Tribune about American drivers going down below the border to buy diesel fuel at half the price they can get it here.

Bus service may be halted today

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UNION-TRIBUNE

June 19, 2008

TIJUANA – Truck and bus drivers experienced a day of chaos in Tijuana yesterday, as they chased a dwindling supply of diesel fuel. Today was shaping up to be even worse.

DAVID MAUNG

Pemex gas station manager Claudia Torres placed a sign yesterday to block the entrance to the diesel pumps after the Tijuana station ran out of the fuel.

For weeks, drivers from the United States have snapped up Mexican diesel, which is selling for about 50 percent less than in California.

That has resulted in a shortage of the fuel, and gas stations nearest the border crossings started halting or limiting sales last weekend.

By yesterday, diesel had started to run out at outlying stations, provoking delays or cancellations in public and private transportation. New supplies might not arrive until Monday.

Long lines of trucks and buses, their drivers desperate to buy diesel, formed at those stations still selling the fuel.

Public transportation officials announced that if they could not refuel their buses they would halt service today, a decision that affects at least 750,000 daily riders.

For the entire article go to San Diego Union.

It’s pretty amazing. Once upon a time people went south of the border to Mexico for romantic reasons. They were escaping the reach of the American law. They were getting married or getting divorced. They were young and restless, looking for a good time in the Tijuana night spots, drinking and cavorting. Looking for the fabled donkey show, or for the more romantic sort that special girl or boy who amid all the drinking still cared enough not to throw up on their sandals.

Stories abounded about kids getting a little too frisky and getting thrown into jail. Their parents or whomever who would have to shell out some cash to get them out. There were stories about the nasty stays in jail, known by most as life changing experiences. The Kingston Trio wrote a song about it, titled appropriately enough, “Tijuana Jail.” If you survived it all, and usually you did, it was a right of passage.

Then, even today there are the short hops from the California Border to Rosarito Beach and Ensenada for beer fests, partying and the occasional lobster meal. You could ride horses on the beach, cheaply. You could buy great Mexican tile by the truckload and save money on your home renovation. You could buy leather goods and switchblade knives. Cheap ones, but it was a five minute thrill to flick it open and closed a few dozen times.

Now you go south of the border to buy gasoline. More specifically, it’s diesel fuel you buy at half the price. You venture to Mexico for diesel fuel, prescription drugs and dental and medical work. It’s cheaper. There are chartered buses for the dental and medical work. For the diesel fuel, you need your car or truck.

So the lines form. Orderly lines, I’m sure. All while the Mexican drug cartels duel it out on the border town streets, killing each other in record numbers. While you buy diesel fuel.

Some world. Eh, Ese`?

The Soul of the Machine

Automated Content Will Unmake Existence

By Jason Lee Miller – Fri, 07/11/2008 – 12:53pm.

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Hug a writer today

Chess is one thing, but if we get to the point computers can best humans in the arts—those splendid, millennia-old expressions of the heart and soul of human existence—then why bother existing? For the entire article go to webpronews.com

I truly enjoyed reading Jason Lee Miller’s article. Not only does he explore some excellent points, but anyone who can cite Jorge Luis Borges in this day and age will always garner my respect and attention.

I am a writer. I have been a writer since my latter teen years when I was first paid by an Urban Weekly, Nightlife Magazine, to write short pieces on the various politicos and characters who frequented the night clubs and bars in North Philadelphia. It was there I found true affirmation of the power of the word among the semi-literate folk who read this politically oriented paper, published by a pair of brother-in-laws. Here in this modest publication, they were able to see what was written between the lines in the mainstream press, or not at all, with regard to local social and civil issues.

Since then I have written damn near everything. I have written for newspapers, have written ad copy, public relations pieces. I have published novels and non-fiction books and have had scripts produced for television and film. Along with the world of background checks and corporate investigation, I have immersed myself in the arts for more decades than I care to disclose.

And what does this mean, exactly? It means one thing. It means that in no time either in history, or in the future will the automated process every capture the heart and soul of the art created by a living human being. To do so, one most suffer, and if not suffer at least experience. Automated content has no experience, only the simulation of experience. And despite the multitude of stale novels and paint by numbers screenplays, there is no substitute for the expanded experience of life.

Experience builds soul. And from soul comes the heart of creation and the ring of truth and the insight conveyed by our better art. No algorithms or data banked sequence of events will ever capture the emanations of the human soul. That is to say, it may be possible to emulate sentimentality and perhaps even muster up a half decent action movie or predictable love story. But no algorithm will every explore the minute but significant differences Milan Kundera ventured forth in his “Unbearable Lightness of Being.” There will be no exploration the dark Southern History as evidenced in Faulkner. You can forget about experiencing the mad mix of mathematics, magic, passion and soul found in Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” And no set of algorithms will delve into the consciousness and subconsciousness like our good friend Borges.

“Shakespeare in Love.” It just ain’t happening. The list goes on. But by now you get the point. I do however caution that the machine, as with many archetypal science fiction work, may well take over the delivery of content. And how can that happen? When we no longer care about the quality of art. When art is so dumbed down it looks like another episode of the wonderful and predictive film “Idiocracy,” where the population has democratized to the point of abject stupidity and total acquiescence to branding and cliche`.

It could come at a time when the society as a whole proclaims as did Rhett Butler in “Gone with The Wind,” “Frankly my dear…I don’t give a damn.” When people, even the more discerning souls, can no longer qualify and distinguish good art from bad, then it really won’t matter whether content is generated by humans or by machines. We will subscribe to imprecise jargon and vague generalities. We will be colored coded people in a paint by numbers world. The quality of art we generate as a civilization will no longer serve to mark the richness of our culture. What we generate as art, simply won’t matter. And that would matter. In fact, that would be a crying shame.

Shelly Berman and Lily Tomlin Are Finally Off the Cell Phone

Californians are finally acquiescing to the new laws prohibiting one handed cell phone use in the car.

California Moves to Curb Bad Habits of Motorists

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

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LOS ANGELES — On any given day on a California freeway, it is not uncommon to see a young woman, phone cradled against one ear, carefully painting her nails a winsome shade of crimson, looking up now and then to inch her car forward in traffic.

Long commutes and a passion for the auto have long combined to make the California car a second home. But that way of life is being chipped away slightly, with a series of new laws — and more being contemplated by state legislators — that take aim at the bad habits of the state’s 22 million drivers.

Last week, California became the fifth state to require that all drivers use a headset with their cellphones. Drivers under the age of 18, under a separate law, may not use a wireless telephone of any form while operating a motor vehicle, a law shared with 13 other states. (Adults can be pulled over just for the cellphone infraction; teenagers have to be committing another offense to be cited for yakking.) For the entire article go to New York Times.com

Okay, we all know the story. Drive down the street and you see in almost every car someone talking on the phone. That someone might even be you. Whoever it is, they tie up traffic and cause accidents, losing their thoughts to their conversation, rather than driving.

True, we are a multi-tasking civilization. But there was a time when it actually required a modicum of focus to drive around in a two ton car. Now, suddenly, it seems we know longer require that focus. We, the population with the attention span of a demented newt, are suddenly not required to focus on little things like avoiding damage to life and limb. And property. Pretty amazing. Throw a TV in there, a computer, and hey, the same people that can’t walk and add at the same time are suddenly talking and driving with one hand clasped up to their ears.

No more. At least in California. According to this article, some are calling it a lifestyle change. Well, it is. Now you have to shut up and drive, or at least be able to drive with two available hands. No more of those ugly, wide swinging turns because you only have one hand to guide the wheel. No more gabbing to your friends that you just saw five minutes ago.

What is it, really? Are the distractions so necessary because we can’t bear to be alone? And how much is there to talk about? You hear people walking and talking on the street and in the super market, and, let’s face it, no great nuggets of wisdom are being issued through the cell phone speaker. So shut up and drive, and stop whining about it.

Some like to argue that it is not the one handed driving that results in accidents, but rather the distraction. Yeah, sure. Maybe both. But common sense dictates that controlling a car with one hand free is more difficult, come and emergency, than driving with two. You wouldn’t scale a cliff with one hand, would you? Unless you were a one armed cliff climber. Not many of those around. You wouldn’t make love with one hand. Unless you were making that love to yourself. You wouldn’t dress with one hand or cook with one hand. You wouldn’t fight with one hand or shop with one hand. So what makes you think you can drive with one hand?

Some complain the law is too harsh. Oh, my. I don’t think it is nearly harsh enough. Forget about the fines. I truly believe that for first offense, getting caught driving with a cell phone up to your ear, is punishable by having that cell phone shoved deep enough into your posterior that the vibration setting has sexual overtones. For second offense, it can be removed with a chainsaw. Anybody with me on this? Probably not. Oh well, we’ll just have to go for the fines.

Despite the fines, the law and the rest of it, when you drive through the streets of LA you still see people one handing their cell phones. I guess they believe it is their right to do so. It seems it’s always a certain type of ignoramus that didn’t read the memo.

Well, here’s a word of advice. Shelly Berman, noted stand up comedian made a comic act out of using the phone. Very funny. Lily Tomlin, as the immortal Ernestine, did a wonderful sequence of comic sketches using the telephone. I’m sure I am forgetting others. But as for you, unless you have a great comic act or in some way can achieve immortality by employing the cell phone, only use it hands free while driving. It’s not only the law, but it’s also the smart thing to do. Who knows? Maybe when you are off the phone you may actually take time to look around and enjoy the moment.

When Straight People Come Into Gay Neighborhoods

Necessity may be the Mother of Invention. But it is also proving to be the Mother of Accomodation and Tolerance. See article and comments below–

Straight Guys (No, Really—They’re Straight) Are Finding A Home In Gay Sports Leagues

by Cyd Zeigler Jr.

June 17th, 2008

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Alon Hacohen had been playing football in adult leagues for years, but as guys hit their thirties, they had kids and moved to the ‘burbs. By chance, an online search for a league that played exclusively in Manhattan led Hacohen to “New York Flag Football.” A year later, he got a response—from the “New York Gay Flag Football League.”

Working in the flower industry, Hacohen, who is 36 and in a committed relationship with a girlfriend, was always comfortable around gay men, but even so . . . “I was reticent—not because it was a gay league, but I was used to a high level of play,” he recalls. “After the first pick-up game, there were guys who could really play, and I got excited.”

Hacohen was the first straight player in the league’s very first season in 2005. Now it has more than 200 members— including about a dozen straight guys who play “fag football” every season. The gay Big Apple Softball League fields some teams that are more than half straight. Estimates place the gay-bowling league at around 20 percent straight. In fact, every gay-sports league in the city probably has at least one straight player.

For the complete article go to the Village Voice.

It has been said many times that necessity is the mother of invention. It is also proving to be the mother of tolerance and accommodation. Upon reading this article, a good one, I was reminded of how this would play out just a decade or two ago,yet alone in the ancient times of lore.

More so, I thought of all the straight couples who are now moving into what are predominantly gay neighborhoods. At first it was surprising to see the appearance of strollers in such California neighborhoods as West Hollywood, in Los Angeles, and the Castro District, in San Francisco. But now it is commonplace.

Since I am a Californian I am well aware that these are not only safer neighborhoods with easy access to the markets, shops and all the other stuff we browse and buy, but these neighborhoods are well maintained. You get a lot of bang for your buck when you buy or lease housing in these neighborhoods. Small wonder straight couples are moving in with little junior. Unlike in previous years, a new generation of couples has no problem exposing young child to alternate lifestyles, namely the gay lifestyle. Most could care less and actually seem to welcome the diversity.

So on one hand you have straight athletes crossing over and playing in gay sports leagues, and here you have young couples raising their children happily in what used to be the forbidden zones. In West Hollywood in particular, you can guide your child and stroller past ever so tasteful landscaping and houses that were nicely renovated and reflective of a truly lovely environment. It seems as if there is a Pink Berry on every corner, so no child will be denied his treat.

What adds to the overall milieu are the gay couples who have for the most part adopted children, some are left over from earlier liaisons, also pushing strollers and holding hands with young toddlers as they take them shopping etc. It is also easy to find people who will work on your house, and for the most part these neighborhoods are in the city and close to employment.

So at the end of the day, if you want to live in a good neighborhood, some of the best neighborhoods are gay neighborhoods. So, hey, the necessity of finding a nurturing environment has led to tolerance and accommodation.

In a world this crazy and with all the nasty things we witness, this is truly a nice thing to see.