after school special

my cousin weston is a sophomore in high school. he got himself in a spot of trouble with a senior -- a good sized senior -- on account of the senior's girlfriend. apparently she was "talking to" weston. apparently "talking to" is a new category of relationship. it's the step after just crushing and before "going together." obviously this senior could not stand for such behavior and so his people scheduled a little conflict resolution with weston's people: after school, under the bleachers. weston missed the appointment. but weston couldn't run forever. the senior caught him when weston was out playing football with some of his fellows.  turns out that senior shouldn't have been so eager for a showdown. and i can tell you this story because some enterprising observer got the whole thing with their iphone and posted it on youtube. nothing's secret people. observe my boy weston -- the one in the blue shorts.

vote the bums out

so... you've seen the front pages, with all those downward trending arrows. all that red ink running down the front page would be our market, our economy, the future of our country. and while i've got a load of moral problems with digging out wall street after their reckless credit spree, it's clear the bail-out matters. stocks around the world rise and fall and banks fail or live to fight another day based on the word from the floor -- not the trading floor of the NYSE, mind you, but the floor of congress. and though our representative government can't pull it together to agree on a plan to salvage the wreck of our economy, they WERE able to agree on $630 billion budget bill yesterday. it was crafted in secret, voted on before anyone could read the 300 + pages and filled with at least $20 billion of pork for pet projects, and more for oil and auto industry subsidies... oh, and almost $500 billion --  a record-breaking outlay -- for the Pentagon for those twin regime-change projects in iraq and afghanistan. i get it. it's an election year and our congress people have to give back for the hefty campaign contributions they've received from big business, and defense, oil and auto give big in election years. but why aren't the little people getting together and teaching our representatives about fiscal responsibility by voting the bums right out of a job?  try balancing YOUR budget on the unemployment line, fella. 

i'm just saying.