Random Reflections Pt2

1.I don't mean anything harmful by this, I mean no insult to anyone, all the usual caveats and addendums apply, blah blah infinite blah...why is everyone overweight these days? We're not in the middle ages anymore, obesity is not a sign of prosperity and good breeding potential. And I'm not talking about 5 to 10 pounds overweight here...I'm talking about, like, Jabba The Hutt, and dressed like Gap beach models, which is nearly blinding to anyone who looks for more than 3 seconds in their direction. How does one let oneself get that large? Everyone has a mirror across from their shower...I can't believe they'd get out soaking wet and say "Hm, not bad." I mean seriously here folks, do they not notice it at 20 pounds overweight? 30? 50? It's not like you wake up one morning looking like that, there are various stages of transition and by the time you're the size of a small European sedan, you've had plenty of time to see it coming. The time to stop is not when you're begging Dr. Phil or Geraldo to reverse your mistakes FOR YOU and pay for your stomach stapling, it's when you stop dead in your tracks and momentum wants to take various parts of your anatomy forward. Better yet, don't start! And the hormones and glandular imbalance excuse holds no water - the number of people who can actually contribute obesity to diagnosable medical conditions is a fraction of a percent. That statistically tiny minority has my deepest sympathies...everyone else...don't complain about society's standards of attractiveness just because you've chosen NOT to live up to them. Lose your three spare tires and your family of chins and then come back and talk to me about how unhealthy it is for models and actors and actresses and musicians to be so thin.

I'm not a health freak. I eat alright, moderate my fat and sugar intake, run a mile every day and lift weights, but I feel dang near anorexic when I walk through the mall.

2.Why is it that most rap music is about crime? With the exception of a statistically nonexistant minority, they ALL make their careers rapping about various felonies - murder, the selling of women, and drug trafficking. And then, hypocritically, a majority of them refer to God reverentially on their CDs, support groups like the Million Mom March, and whine that the police harass them. Well dang folks, I'm fresh out out of sympathy here - if'n I was in the field of law enforcement and some local critter was proclaiming from the youth's boomboxes about his prowess in drive-bys, I'd cast more than a significant glance or two in his direction. And don't try and sell me on this poor, ghetto lifestyle - you're either downtrodden and living hand-to-mouth or you're living high on the hog, JUST LIKE YOU RAP. Pick one and stick with it.

3.My brother attended court to pay his fireworks ticket today. A hit-and-runner who capped a mailbox was up before us, was ordered to pay $1 plus replace the mailbox. My brother got nearly $200 in fines. What the hell, over? Let us consider for a moment the act of reckless driving and property damage, weighed against celebrating our country's birth ten days before the anniversary, in the manner in which the founding fathers told us they preferred - behavior that harms absolutely no one except, possibly, the perpetrators. The judge said to check out the hospital burn unit that it's "filled with people injured by fireworks. You could've hurt yourself or others." Nazzo fast there Clarence Darrow, the town newspaper reported 3 fireworks burn cases total for the summer, discounting of course, the terminally moronic man who torched his car by lighting a pack of sparklers while driving and setting them in a blanket on his lap. Go get yourself a new shtick with which to threaten and intimidate, this one's limp as a wet rag.

4.When did making effigies of public figures and mutilating said effigies (in public no less!) in protest go out of vogue. Nothing expresses your displeasure with your Congresscritter faster than hanging a statue of him from a lamp-pole or nailing his likeness to the Liberty Tree. Funny, but our country was freest when this was a common occurance.

5.Bush wants to take command of the national guard during emergencies (guess who gets to define emergency) without the consent of the governers of the called-upon's state. This was one of the grievances in the Declaration Of Independence:"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." Now I don't know about you, but I remember Katrina survivors disarmed at gunpoint, tossed from their homes, and put into veritable pits of degredation and crime like the Superdome...at the behest of the federal government and out-of-state guard units, and the thought of having fifty states worth of guard units roaming over the countryside during a disaster makes the hair on my arms stand on end. This is the very definition of Bad Idea.