I was sitting in Wendy’s two nights ago, trying to eat my chicken sandwich in piece, but the TV was distracting me. It was turned to MSNBC, and some commentator had a few talking heads on to discuss the recent developments in Iowa and Vermont, two states that recently made gay marriage legal. The commentator breathlessly said that “now is the time for a national discussion about gay marriage”.

You know what? I agree. But to save time, I’m just going to go ahead and do all the talking. Hope thats okay with you guys.

Q: These arrogant activist judges! Who do they think they are, striking down legislation that is clearly the will of the people?
A: Uh…maybe they think they’re judges? Isn’t that the entire concept of Judicial Review? Populists might clamor that this is elitist…and they’re right. Parts of our government were established to be a check on popular sentiment. If “just being popular” is enough of a reason for laws to escape judicial review, whats the point of having a judiciary? That “judicial activism” gave us Brown v Board of Education and Baker V Carr.

Plus, if we define “judicial activism” as “the supreme court voting to overturn a ruling”, then the Conservative wing is more likely to be activist. I’d like to suggest another definition of “Activist Judges”….”When judges make a decision that I disagree with”.

Seriously. How many people who are mad at the Iowa Supreme Court are basing their arguments on their knowledge of the Constitution of Iowa?

Q: Legalizing gay marriage and civil unions will doubtless start us on a slippery slope towards legalizing polygamy, pedophilia, animal marriages, and marrying Janet Reno.
A: I beg to differ. Animals and children cannot consent, so they cannot be married. Full stop. The United States doesn’t have the legal tradition of some place like Pakistan, where marrying off 11 year olds seems to be okay (and, oddly enough, Pakistan doesn’t allow gay marriage). Gay Marriage/Civil Unions, an agreement between two, consenting adults, is not analogous to any of the other aforementioned acts.

Polygamy may involve contenting parties (maybe, some sociological research on how relationships work on polygamous compounds might beg to differ), but its pretty easy to justify denying some legal benefits to multiple parties, as it would be easy to set up “families” as tax sheltering devices. The boondoggle dividing up benefits after a polygamous divorce might be a boon to lawyers, but it would be a huge hassle for our courts as well.

Besides, take it from a Mormon, polygamy ain’t worth it. Last time we tried that, mobs kidnapped and killed our leader, drove us from our perfectly good town in Illinois, drove us across the wilderness, and forced to settle in Utah. Gross. Where would the mobs send you if you tried to be polygamous now? Alaska, to live in Sarah Palin’s kingdom? (I can see this….polygamous families welcome in Alaska, so long as every child gets an assault rife, and has a stupid name. . Hi, these are my wives Kara, Lisa and Emily…and our children; Tuscaloosa, Microwave and Battlestar Galatica)

Q: I don’t want a gay marriage.
A: I am unaware of any judicial ruling or legislative act requiring anybody to get one.

Q: Allowing Gay Marriage will threaten the institution of marriage.
A: I hear this one a lot, and I have yet to really get a satisfactoy answer from anybody, be they commentator, ecclesiastical authority, or anybody else as to exactly why that is. Lets say that we believe that Marriage is a unique institution specifically created for a Man and a Woman, and that any other union should go by a different name. Okay, lets call the other one’s civil unions, and let them have the same benefits. Is that okay?

Many who oppose GM also oppose that idea, and I’m exactly sure why. Knowing that dudes are holding hands somewhere in San Fransisco doesn’t in any way cheapen or damage the wonderful (heterosexual) relationship I have now. When I’m out with my girlfriend…I’m not thinking about gay people. Like…ever. If you are, well…I’m no Dr.Phil, but I suspect your relationship may have other issues.

Is  Marriage under attack? Sure, I believe that, but not by the gays. Divorce rates are high, and there are lots of possible culprits. Financial insecurity/worries have damaged lots of relationships. Pornography certainly has. Poor communication, infidelity, health problems….I can think of lots of things that might be contributing to marriages breaking down. *That* is a very important topic that we *should* have a national conversation about. The Nuclear Family is an institution worth defending.

But Gays? How often do you think this happens?
Honey, I know we’ve been married for 10 years, and I know we loved each other. But Iowa just legalized Gay Marriage, and I really think I should use that opportunity to take my Bro-mance with Chad to a new level. Before, it was just our weekly poker game and phone calls about fantasy baseball. Now….we can share Social Security. I just think its a better deal.

Really? I doubt it.

Q: Homosexuality is clearly a sin, and as such, we should oppose GM/CU
A: Personally, I think Theology doesn’t really enter into it. My own theological views on homosexuality are kind of moot as far as the debate over hospital visitation rights and pension sharing is concerned. My religious faith also teaches me to abstain from the consumption of alcohol and coffee, but it would be wrong to try and force that on everybody, no?

There is not a legal reason to think that allowing Civil Unions would require churches to marry gay people if they didn’t want to. Certainly, if there was, I would vigorously oppose it. Churches should have the freedom to marry/allow in whoever they want…but there is no credible reason to think that that would change. If somebody says otherwise in church, they are not speaking out of any understanding of the law.

At the end of the day, I may have my own theological belief about homosexuality, but why should that mean that gay people shouldn’t have hospital visitation rights?

Q: Thats about all I can think of.
A: Me too. Good talk.

This website has been updated sporadically lately for two main reasons. One is that I’m crazy busy with some TFA related projects (see my sister blog, somedayallblogs.wordpress.com). The other reason is that I’ve been working on some longer writing projects. Here is one story that I thought maybe you guys might enjoy, about my bus trip to Washington DC to blog about the Obama Inauguration for a small Ohio Newspaper. Enjoy

The instructions on my ticket confirmation email seemed simple enough. Please bring your photo ID, your email confirmation number, and please get to the Greyhound Station 1 hour before your bus departs. My plan was then to get on my bus, take a nap, read a book, jam to my iPod, and before I knew it, I would be at Union Station in Washington DC. Easy.

But alas, things are not always so simple. I suspect there is quite a bit they don’t tell you about Greyhound Bus journeys.

First, customer service isn’t exactly a priority. Me and my girlfriend (D) arrived at the station for our bus trip at 3:30 AM, and noticed the station was almost completely empty. Apparently, demand for the 4:30 bus from Columbus to DC on a Monday was sparse. Seeing that I was the only one in line at the ticket counter, I walked right up to the front, thinking that I would simply exchange my confirmation number and ID for my tickets, as per the instructions in my email. The Ticket Lady was engaged in a rather lively discussion with a security guard and a bus driver, punctuated by the occasional aaaaaaw shiiiit, and aw no she’s didn’t! I politely coughed to show that I, a customer, needed to be served. The Ticket Lady looked up at me, glared, and continued her conversation.

I turned around and gave my girlfriend a confused look. Was this the right ticket counter? Was it closed? We couldn’t see any sign that would indicate that, and the email did tell us to come to the station at such an ungodly hour. The Ticket Lady apparently noticed, and turned to me. “Sir. I notice you’re getting a little antsy. I am talking right now. Please wait your turn.” She said all of this as if the bus driver was a paying customer, waiting to check his duffel bag and head to Chicago. She then turned back to her friends and said just loud enough for me to hear; can you believe these kids? What are they doing here so goddamned early?[1] I shrugged and sat down by my backpack. I guess this is why Greyhound wanted us to get here so early.

After an uncomfortably long wait, we eventually got our tickets, and sat down next to the door to wait for our bus. “I’m so excited for this trip. Are you excited yet?” D asked me. I had every reason to be. I had managed to talk the editors of my local newspaper to take me off the high school sports beat, and let me cover the inauguration of Barack Obama. Me and D had both worked for the Obama campaign, and the idea of physically witnessing the culmination of our efforts was very thrilling indeed. D had also not been to DC since she was in 8^th grade, and I used to live there, so in addition to witnessing history, I could go visit old college friends and show my girlfriend around what I considered to be my second hometown.

But it was still before 4 AM, and I have a hard time being really excited for anything before 4 AM. “It hasn’t sunk in yet. Ask me if I’m excited once we get to Wheeling” I said. Wheeling was the first stopover on the way to DC. We would then change buses in Pittsburgh, and makes stops in Hagerstown and Baltimore before the end of our journey. I slouched on my little bench, and tried to get a little bit of sleep before our bus was scheduled to arrive in a half hour.

Only the bus didn’t get there in a half hour. Our bus, without apology or explanation, rolled into the stop a fashionable hour and a half late. That’s just another one of the things they don’t tell you.

I tried to nap a little more once I finally got on the bus, but my seat made that pretty much impossible. Greyhound managed to construct a seat that’s uncomfortable, no matter how you sit in it. I tried reclining the chair, kicking my legs into the aisle, scrunching up in a ball, and hundreds of other positions over the course of our journey, but nothing worked. Just when I thought I was comfortable enough to take a quick nap, I’d notice that my right leg and half of my butt had fallen asleep. At least this time I was traveling with a friend. On my previous Greyhound journey, my seat mate was Jabba the Hut, who spilled into my seat, pinning me against the window with a wall of jiggling fat.

D didn’t seem to have any trouble falling asleep though, and was only just waking up when the bus rolled into the lonely downtown of Wheeling West Virginia. It was still pretty dark outside and downtown Wheeling wasn’t exactly aglow with skyscrapers and flashing neon. I’m not even sure if it was aglow from street lamps. “Where are we?” she asked me.

“I think we’re in Wheeling. I guess we’re just going to stop for a second, and then head to Pittsburgh.”

“Are you excited yet?”

I yawned and stretched. “Not yet. Ask me when we get to Pittsburgh”.

Truthfully, it wasn’t just my inability to catch a decent nap that was preventing the excitement from kicking in. We were still over an hour behind schedule, and we were supposed to change buses in Pittsburgh. If we missed that connection, there was no telling how long we’d be stuck there, maybe even an entire day. I was supposed to file a story “on my journey to DC” by 7 PM, and that would prove difficult to do if I didn’t actually arrive in DC before 7. I silently hoped that our connecting bus was late as well.

Our bus driver must have somehow heard my silent pleas. While D slept, and I turned to my iPod as a distraction from my worries, our bus thundered along the highway at speeds not even close to legal. Most buses stay in the righthand land and cruise close to the speed limit, but we darted around traffic as if we were a motorcycle, not a gigantic passenger bus. By some sort of miracle, we pulled into the bus station 15 minutes before we were scheduled to change buses. The driver got on the intercom. “Ladies and Gentlemen, you are many things. You are Black, White, Young, Old, Man and Woman…..but you are no longer late”. I could have hugged him.

The Bus station in Pittsburgh was very different than the Columbus station. Columbus isn’t much of a Greyhound hub, so their station is small and sparse, with a few dirty benches, some dingy overpriced vending machines, and old video games that nobody wants to play. Pittsburgh is apparently a major hub for all the entire east coast. If you’re in the midwest and you want to bus to the East Coast, you have to pass through the Pittsburgh Greyhound station. It had more than twice the number of gates as the last station, and everything looked new and clean. In addition to the typical vending machine fare, this station had flatscreen TV’s showing CNN and ESPN, and what looked to be a mini restaurant/convenience store. It was about time for a late breakfast, and there were probably some things we could pick up for our trip, so D and I stashed our packs by our gate, and went to explore the store.

The back corner of the mini mart was labeled “The Greyhound Grill”, which advertised your typical burgers and pizza fare, along with hot breakfasts. After inspecting the menu, I decided that some pancakes would taste delicious, and stepped up to place my order. Only nobody was there. I peaked over the counter, waited some more, and then shuffled around the Grill area uncomfortably.

A voice from across the mini mart had the answer. “Oh, they don’t open that until 12:30 I think” said a greyhound employee. “You can only buy the prepackaged foods here at the minimart”

“If you don’t open until 12:30, why are you selling breakfast foods? Why is there no sign?” I really had my heart set on some pancakes. The picture looked so inviting.

“I don’t know. I’m just the cashier lady.” We sighed, bought some four dollar muffins (that only provided maybe a dollar fifty of hunger relief), and went to board our next bus, which was set to take us across Pennsylvania, into Maryland, and finally Washington DC.

It was light for the first time, so I finally got a chance to glimpse at some of my fellow passengers. Like my previous Greyhound adventures, it looked like we had quite the cast of characters. I could see a man trying to sell little American flags to everybody on the bus. “Please help me out here guys. I’m going to the Inauguration and this is how I’m going to pay for my ticket back” (We didn’t buy any). I saw a few people that looked like college students, a few ambiguously sketchy folks, and dozens of people wearing Obama buttons or paraphernalia (including two people that were wearing way too much Obama paraphernalia. I couldn’t tell what color their coat was supposed to be, it was so covered in buttons). At the time, I didn’t really have a reason to be particularly interested in any of my fellow passengers. I made a quick phone call, then decided to flip through the book I was reading.

Apparently, the seats are not the only part of the bus that had less than stellar craftsmanship. I looked up from my book to discover that our bus was no longer humming along a highway in Pennsylvania, but was sitting in a mall parking lot. My fellow passengers were exchanging worried looks, so I started to get worried. The bus driver got up to the intercom and started to talk.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it appears we have a small problem with this doodad here in the engine system, and now our brakes aren’t working so well. We’ll have a replacement bus coming to pick you up in about an hour or so. We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for riding Greyhound. Actually, I have no idea what he said, because the bus intercom system hadn’t been updated since the Carter administration, so it came out like the teacher’s voice in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Regardless, we now had an unexpected pit stop in Monroeville Pennsylvania.

According to my extensive research[2], Monroeville is a suburb of Pittsburgh, with a population of roughly 30,000. Apparently it had been quite the prosperous little town back when coal and steel were huge industries, but from my window, all I could see were vacant strip malls and fast food joints. That’s okay, because I didn’t buy a bus ticket to go see the sights and sounds of Western Pennsylvania…and after sitting in that bus for 4 and a half hours already with nothing to eat but a crappy, overpriced muffin, I was ready for some fast food.

The new bus wasn’t coming for at least an hour, so a few of us passengers walked a few blocks to a Panera to grab some lunch. I grabbed a seat next to a window, and spread my notebooks and paperwork across the table, next to my delicious turkey sandwich. If I was going to be stuck here for a few more hours, I might as well get some work done. I tried to write down a few notes from the trip so far, to maybe use in one of my newspaper articles, but my thoughts kept drifting to our bus situation. I kept checking the window every few seconds; to make sure that the new bus hadn’t arrived yet. This absolutely drove D crazy.

“Are you seriously checking again? It’s been what, 7 minutes?” she asked more than once.

I couldn’t help it. What if we were left here? I needed to think of some sort of contingency plan. Perhaps that’s another thing they don’t tell you about Greyhound buses, I mused to myself. Always think of a backup plan.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to employ any of my poorly hatched doomsday backup plans. Maybe fifteen minutes after I walked out of Panera, another Greyhound rolled up next to ours in the Monroeville Mall parking lot, ready for the next leg of our journey.

I didn’t think it was possible for a bus to be even more dilapidated and uncomfortable than the one we took to Pittsburgh, but our replacement vehicle managed to break all the records. The “new” bus was a little bit smaller, but managed to cram in four more seats. This made anything resembling foot room nothing but a vicious rumor. There was some sort of fan built in right above my seat, making an obnoxious WRRRRRRR sound the rest of the trip. It was maybe 35 degrees outside, and the bus certainly wasn’t warm, so the fan didn’t seem to serve any purpose besides annoying me. Customer satisfaction is clearly a priority of the Greyhound Bus Company.

I don’t think I was the only passenger who noticed the less than stellar condition of our new steed. Before we could pull out of the mall parking lot, one of the passengers in the front stood up and said something to the bus driver that I couldn’t hear. Then he stood up in the front of the bus and asked us to bow our heads, because he was going to pray.

“Dear Lord, we thank you for watching over us and blessing us every day. We ask that you pour out your blessings onto our bus driver, and this bus, that we might safely and quickly arrive in DC to see the inauguration of our new President. Amen”. A few passengers let out scattered “amens”, and the man went back to his seat.

Despite being a religious person myself, I’m normally a little uncomfortable with public community prayers like this…but not then. The way this trip was going, we needed all the help we could get in order to get to DC on time, and if that meant publicly asking The Big Man to watch over us, I could live with that.

The bus was also filthy. My seat was dotted with what looked like fossilized Cheetos. The floor hadn’t been cleaned in ages, making your shoes stick to the floor with every step. It was like walking in some sort of tar pit, or maybe a movie theater. The windows still had the residue of dead bugs (did they leave them there to set an example for other bugs?). I swept as much trash off of my chair as I could, pulled out my book, and tried to find some semblance of normalcy for the rest of the trip.

This proved difficult to do, because I was starting to see that some of our fellow passengers on the trip were anything but normal. Greyhound passengers typically fall into two groups: college students/people who cannot afford plane tickets, and people who don’t stand a chance of passing the required security checkpoints on airplanes[3]. I was maybe 15 the first time I ever rode on a Greyhound, and on that short trip between Columbus and Cleveland, my fellow passengers tried to sell me drugs no less than three times[4]. Nobody tried to sell drugs on this trip, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have a few characters on the bus.

Perhaps the most interesting of my fellow travelers was “The Baby Lady”. The Baby Lady seemed normal enough. She was maybe a few years older than me, and had the most adorable, outgoing little baby boy, who would make faces at some of the other passengers and laugh. I taught the kid how to drum on one of the bus seats, much to the chagrin of some of the other passengers. On a long trip through the doldrums of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, The Baby Lady’s baby was a welcome diversion.

But then somewhere outside of Monroeville, The Baby Lady decided she wanted to take a nap. She curled up as best she could in the terrible bus seat, passed her baby to two random passengers next to her, and went to sleep. She slept through half of Pennsylvania, and her laughing child slowly made the rounds along the side of the bus. I don’t profess to have any great paternal instincts, but after watching a child get passed along a Greyhound bus like a teenager crowd surfing at a rock concert, something deep within me stirred. I don’t know much about raising children, but this cannot be right. I turned and looked at my girlfriend, who appeared to be having the same reaction. After watching another group of passengers try to feed the baby some of those fossilized Cheetos, I wanted to leap out of my seat, grab the kid, and find the nearest Social Services Agent. I hope that poor kid had all of his shots.

The bus rolled past Breezewood[5], and into Maryland, and I started looking for new ways to entertain myself. I had finished my book, my iPod was low on batteries, and my girlfriend had managed to defy all known laws of Physics, and had fallen asleep. I had an article due only a few hours after we were scheduled to arrive in DC, and I noticed that my notebook had precious little in the way of actual, usable notes [6]. I overheard a few people talking about the upcoming inauguration, so I decided to introduce myself, and join the conversations.

It turns out that many of my fellow travelers were quite interesting, and not just in the drug trafficking/reckless child endangerment sort of way. More than half of the bus passengers were headed to the inauguration, and all of them had a story. One woman flew in from England, without an inauguration ticket, and knowing that she had to be back in England in three days. This baffled many of her fellow passengers. Most of us could understand why an American would want to travel to see Obama (after all, that’s what most of us were doing), but Obama wasn’t even her president! When faced with these questions, the lady would just smile, and said that even foreigners can appreciate the major history. “Electing somebody like Obama is a victory for us all” she said.

Another passenger was a law student from Kansas, who had been on buses for two straight days, having weathered another bus breakdown in Missouri. Despite having to endure 24 hours of bus, he was in good spirits, and never complained once.

Perhaps the most interesting to me were two travelers a few rows up from me. They were about my age, and were from Fresno California. They had been on Greyhound buses for three straight days, and were going to make that same journey home the day after the inauguration. I thought that international conventions prevented this sort of thing from happening. I incredulously asked them why they would want to come so far, and spend so much time in so uncomfortable a setting. They just grinned, and held up a copy of that day’s USA Today. The headline read “JUST FOR THE FEELING OF BEING THERE”. I smiled, nodded, and made that my lead for my first article.

I met a few other passengers on the bus. Sometimes I spoke, or asked questions, but mostly I listened and took notes. I didn’t tell anybody I was a journalist, I just stepped back, and let other people tell their stories that they were so eager to share. Maybe that’s something that Greyhound ought to play up a little more. Ride Greyhound, come back with a story. That’s something they certainly didn’t tell me about.

After one last hiccup (a huge traffic jam on Interstate 95), we finally arrived at Union Station in Washington DC. We were only about two and a half hours late, which isn’t actually all that bad, if my other Greyhound trips are any indication. [7] It was starting to get dark, but we still had plenty of time to walk to the nearest Metro stop, and head to a friend’s apartment, where I could file my story on the journey and appease my hungry editors.

My confirmation email was pretty simple. It told me to arrive at the station in Columbus at 3:30 AM, and to bring my email and confirmation number. The email told me that a bus would take me to Pittsburgh, and then to Washington DC, and it left a number I could call in case I needed a refund. That was it. Nobody said anything about the optional customer service, or how arrival times were merely fluid suggestions, not rigid schedules. Nobody told me I would leave the bus trip with a notebook full of stories either. [8] I guess there is quite a bit they don’t tell you about Greyhound buses.

If the wailing and gnashing of teeth of my friends is any indication, we’ve apparently been struck by another national tragedy. No, the economy didn’t crash again, and nobody died (well, except Michael Steele’s career apparently). It looks like Facebook went and changed their layout again.

I’m sure Facebook has all sorts of important and expensive consultants who have all sorts of good reasons (no doubt spelled out professionally on Powerpoints, without those distracting slide transitions with the dumb sound effects) to edit the layout of Facebook every couple of months, but I can’t think of any. Most people I know preferred the old layout. Then Facebook changed it, we all whined and joined facebook groups to show just how serious we were about this…but then most of us got over it. Does anybody know anybody who said “I like Facebook, but this layout is too much for me. I quit”. Or more importantly, does anybody know anybody who said “This layout is awesome. I didn’t want a facebook before, but suddenly now I need one. I plan on sending facebook a check to show how excited I am”.

Like the legendary basketball player Charles Oakley said, “If it ain’t broke. Don’t break it”. Why does Facebook insist on breaking stuff?

It isn’t like the Facebook achieved total perfection the first time…far from it. I just don’t think the “layout” is the breaking point for anybody. If I was in charge of Facebook for a day, I would leave the layout alone. It’s fine. I would go after the real menace….the ad generator on the side of your page.

In theory, facebook is supposed to generate ads that are particularity relevant to you, based on all the info you stuck up on your page. In practice though, its annoying as hell.

Back when I was single, Facebook decided that should try to help. I’d glance at my wall, laugh at the funny joke a friend had written, the glance at the side of my profile to see “GIRLS WON’T DATE YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO FAT! CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO GET RIPPED!!”

Now, I’m a lot of things, but fat isn’t one of them. How depressing is it to have your computer call you fat though? Couldn’t it see my profile picture? Does facebook assume that everybody who is single is fat? Thanks Facebook.

If it wasn’t ads that were taking potshots at my personal appearance, I was getting singles ads. Not one or two…but dozens, imploring me to just click “there”, and the computer would introduce me to dozens of “girls next door” that were dying to meet me. I had a hard time believing that facebook was being totally honest with me though…they were using the same picture of Kim Kardashian under the header “Meet Girls Next Door!”. I think I would notice if Kim lived next door to me, Facebook.

Facebook also would sometimes show singles services that had absolutely nothing to do with anything on my profile. I often got MEET MUSLIM SINGLES ads. Did Facebook get Mormon and Muslim mixed up again (wouldn’t be the first time)? I don’t have anything against Muslims, but I’m curious to know where I gave off the impression that I was specifically looking to date one? I got them for Catholics, Asians, and my personal favorite, “Big beautiful People just like you”. Really facebook? I’m going to go log off and go running now.

When I finally changed my relationship status to “in a relationship”, I was pretty excited about the prospect of having the side of my profile free from singles ads. Weirdly enough, for a long time, that didn’t happen! I still got dating service website ads, at only a slightly slower clip.

The weirdest thing was that they were all virtually for the same service…a “Meet Christian Girls” website. This was hysterically ironic on a lot of levels. Was a Christian website trying to get me to cheat on my girlfriend? Was Facebook making a really subtle Mormon polygamy joke? If thats the case…thats not funny.

Actually, thats not true. It would be really funny.

Anyways, a few weeks ago, the singles ads finally stopped. Now, Facebook has done a complete about-face, and  is trying to peddle engagement rings to me.

Facebook. I know we’re friends and all…but don’t try to give me advice on my love life anymore. Go back to showing me pictures of cats with funny, grammatically incorrect captions.

There are actually lots of other things that could be improved (beefing up the note writing system for sure, allowing more flexibility in content fields, etc), but the ad generator is one of the biggest needs. It’s the worst thing to happen to Facebook since Werewolves and Vampires.

It’s certainly a more pressing need than “hey, we haven’t done anything in a while. Lets rearrange all the the buttons and see if anybody notices”.

resident Obama is sitting at his desk. His tie is loosened, and he is obviously stressed

OBAMA:
My first day in office certainly wasn’t that hard
The only hiccup was Roberts inability to read from a card
but now crisis are mounting, folks are beating down my door
this certainly wasn’t the change I had hoped for.

The media is pounding me, and I can’t relax
because nobody I hired paid all their taxes.
Then the economy descended into insanity,
and my idiot press sec said I’d grab beers with Sean Hannity
Hopefully my stimulus bill can get some momentum flowing
Lemme check CSPAN and see how thats going…

Cut to: PELOSI’S OFFICE
Nancy Pelosi is meeting with her staffers, and other high level Democratic House members. They are giddily throwing around monopoly money.

PELOSI:
When we asked for children’s insurance, they laughed in our face
but now I’m in charge, and we’ll put the GOP back in it’s place
to hell with bipartisanship, they didn’t show any here
so lets load this bill up with our wishlist from the last 8 years!

Guys? What are your problems?

INTERN
In a few months, me and my girlfriend are having a baby
and we’re worried about money, since you really don’t pay me

PELOSI: 300 MILLION FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD!!

AIDE
I’ve finally got some time off, but I don’t know what to do
since i’ve already watched everything in my Netflicks queue

PELOSI:
ANOTHER 600 MILLION FOR HOLLYWOOD!!

OTHER AIDE
Oh, I have something that requires me to vent
I hit a pothole driving to work, now my BMW has a dent!

PELOSI: (clearly drunk with power)
ELVENTY BILLION BUCKS TO BUILD NEW ROADS! Bwahaha

CUT TO: Republican Meeting

CANTOR: For 8 years we spent money like drunken fools
and hoped that nobody would notice, or read the news
now we’re hopelessly out of power, so its time to pretend
that we know anything about how to responsibly spend

BOEHNER: Let us make the most outlandish statements we can make on the floor!
Its easy to take a stand, when you don’t matter anymore!

Mike Huckabee: I sent out a letter to everybody on my mailing list
saying this bill is an abomination, and its making God pissed

Mitt Romney: I’m against this bill too! It’s certainly no fun
it gives no money at all to any company I run

Glenn Beck: LOOOOUD NOISES! I DONT KNOW WHAT WE’RE YELLING ABOUT!

(cut to: Obama, facepalming)

OBAMA: I thought my first 100 days were supposed to be a honeymoon?
If its all going to be just like this, I hope its 2012 soon….

I might catch some flack for this, but I really don’t like Valentine’s Day at all.

Now hear me out, this isn’t for any of the typical reasons. It isn’t because I’m some bitter single guy…I’m happily in a relationship, but I wasn’t bitter on Valentine Days past when I wasn’t. On the contrary, it allowed me to get all sorts of cheap candy the day or two after (and who doesn’t like cheap candy?)

It isn’t because I disprove of the materialism of the holiday either. So Hallmark and Buckeye Flowers get to make a few extra bucks over the weekend. We’re in a recession here people. Not only is it our obligation as boyfriends to buy stuff over Valentine’s day, its just flat out patriotic.

No, it isn’t the day itself that I have a problem with. It’s when we have it. There isn’t a worse possible time for a romantic holiday than in the middle of February, especially when you live in Central Ohio.

I mean, have any of you guys been outside these past few days? The sky has been gray for what seems like 13 consecutive days. The trees, grass, everything is barren and devoid of life. Its also cold, windy, and half of the sidewalks are still covered in ice. I’ve fallen down maybe a dozen times on the way to class these past few weeks. Sorry we couldn’t do dinner this weekend…I’m stuck at OSU hospital cause I broke my hip on Waldeck. Great.

Plus, this is the middle of flu season! Everybody has been battling that same case of the sniffles for about 6 weeks. When people are taking about sharing things with your loved ones, they typically aren’t talking about the flu. Some things are best kept to yourself.

It all seems like quite a predicament, but I’m a solutions orientated guy, and I have an idea. Why not just move Valentine’s Day to say, early June?

Everybody is in a much better mood in June. The sun comes back out, and we can all shake off our lingering Seasonal Affective Disorder. We aren’t sick anymore, and it’ll be warm enough to do things outside, creating more possibilities for fun Valentine’s Day activities. Plus, June isn’t a big holiday month. A quick Google search shows me that we have Father’s Day, Flag Day, and then a bunch of made up holidays in those first two weeks (national ballpoint pen day? Seriously? I bet we can squeeze Valentine’s Day in there somewhere). This works out better for everybody.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go down a shot of DayQuil. . I got make sure I’m healthy by this weekend.

Things can get pretty heated when me and my buddies play Madden. In the heat of battle, disparaging remarks about mothers and girlfriends might get thrown about. We might pause the game in the middle of a play, or force each other to watch instant replays of that last Hail Mary again and again. Just because we bust each other’s chops doesn’t mean that there aren’t lines that we don’t cross though. If somebody is lucky enough to have a huge lead, that person better not start going for fake punts on 4th down. Poor Madden sportsmanship will result in a deluge of profanities and hurt feelings at the very least. Flagrant violations of video game sportsmanship might result in something drastic, like my roommate discovering his toothbrush floating in our toilet.

The point is, even in the heat of competition, there are certain lines you shouldn’t cross.

Covenant Christian, near Dallas Texas, would have done well to remember that. Covenant’s girls basketball team recently defeated neighboring Dallas Academy 100-0. That isn’t a typo…they actually pitched a shutout in a basketball game. Covenant plans on competing for a state title in Texas, whereas Dallas Academy, a school that specializes in helping students with learning disabilities. Academy has only 20 girls in their entire high school. Clearly, this was going to be a mismatch.

But Covenant’s coaching staff didn’t exactly help matters. After racing to more than a 50 point lead at halftime, Covenant continued to shoot three pointers and press (according to media reports). After the game, the embarrassed headmaster for Covenant issued a public apology for the massacre, and for good reason. I know the Bible is rather silent as to what kind of defense Jesus would run, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be running a full court press against a team of special education students if he was winning by more than 20.

But Covenant’s coach was unrepentant, saying that he disagreed with the administration, and didn’t think he had anything to apologizer for. The Covenant administration, wisely seeing that this kind of behavior clashed with the mission of their school, recently sacked the coach.

I’ve covered high school sports for other newspapers before. Sometimes things can get out of hand quickly. It isn’t fair to either team, or the game, to tell one team to quit playing, but there are ways to win without embarrassing or obliterating somebody. A smart coach would have used a blowout to try some new offensive sets, and would have just asked his team to use more of the shot clock, and stop pressing. Running up the score isn’t just a display of classlessness, but it robs his team of an important teaching opportunity.

Stunts like this have a way of coming back to haunt you. In Texas, maybe he’ll just find himself on the other end of a massive blowout.

If he tried that in our apartment, he might want to watch his toothbrush.

Like a lot of guys, I used to collect baseball cards when I was a kid. I had shoeboxes full of ‘em, all neatly placed in little plastic sleeves, categorized by team, waiting to be showed off or traded with some of the other neighborhood kids. My dad helped fuel my habit, but purchasing bulk packs of some of the older Topps sets from 1988 or 1989 that nobody seemed to want (which would unfortunately also contain the bubble gum from 1988. Turns out gum becomes inedible after a decade. Who woulda thought?). I dabbled in basketball and football cards, but baseball cards were always my passion. I heard rumors that they made cards for even more obscure sports, like NASCAR, but to a purist like me, that bordered on sacrilege.

So imagine my reaction when I discovered that Topps, the company that brought me so much joy as a 10 year old sports fan, is now coming out with a line of Barack Obama trading cards. http://tinyurl.com/94w83g

My first thought was that this had to be some kind of joke, like those awful commercials the NCAA puts out, with kids swapping trading cards of “Student Athletes” (A Mike Greene Rookie card? No way, the dude dominates the chemistry lab! Thanks NCAA. Thanks to your commercial, I’m convinced that you want to put the student in student athlete first. I was worried there for a second). Are politician trading cards the way of the future? Will my children open up a pack to find a Bill Clinton rookie card, which a picture of him making his first copies? Or perhaps Joe Biden, grabbing his first cup of coffee for his congressman? Perhaps they’ll be so lucky to find a rare Dick Cheney rookie card, where he’s shooting another rival intern in the head with a BB gun.

Maybe Politician trading cards will help give a spark to Fantasy Congress, a game similar to fantasy baseball, only now it’s only played by the terminally single in American University dorm rooms. (ohh snap Zach Space broke up a filibuster this week. That’s worth like 40 fantasy points). Will we have Matthew Berry breaking down the California 14th congressional district on ESPN? Is that what you want America??

This trend worries me. Look, I like Barack Obama a lot. I voted for him. I did a little campaigning for him….but even I am becoming slightly unnerved by this recent baseball card development. The guy hasn’t even been sworn it yet, and we’re already putting his face on trading cards? There aren’t a whole lot of things more American than baseball cards, and the day that we start selling packs of Politician cards right alongside them…well, that’s a little too much Change for even this political junkie.

I closed my eyes this morning for a second, and had a rather unpleasant flashback. I was back in my freshman Geometry class, struggling through axioms, proofs, and dejectedly looking at my latest test, awash in angry red ink. 68%. I remember looking up at Mr.Bright and asked the question that would be burned into the minds of future liberal arts students everywhere. “Seriously, Mr.Bright, when am I ever going to USE this?”

And here was my answer…on the Praxis test. Why high school math problems were on my elementary school content Praxis exam, I’ll never know…but they were there, sending me into a mental tailspin, as I searched the deep recesses of my brain for facts that probably were never there to begin with.

Everybody told me not to worry much about the test. “Its just Elementary School content stuff…you’re about to graduate college right? No sweat”…so I didn’t sweat. But when those first two math problems were questions that I vaguely remembered from my SAT, I my fear that I had outkicked my coverage with this whole Teach For America business came back out to the forefront.

I had hoped I was done with this whole standardized test stuff by now. I’ve been celebrating after every one I’ve taken now, sure that it would be the last time I would be told to “put my no.2 pencils down”, but alas, they keep throwing more at me. I thought the SAT was the last one, then I had to take that again, then the LSAT, and now the Praxis…and I’m hearing rumors that there will be more Praxis tests in my future. I’m lucky that I tend to do fairly well on these tests, but I wouldn’t say that I don’t “sweat” them…mostly because I think I peaked academically in 8th grade.

I wonder what a “no sweat” test would look like. Maybe if we got rid of all the “arcane math problems” and “graph reading” questions, and changed the categories to something like…

Geeky Political Trivia
Bruce Springsteen
The NBA
Great Moments in Ohio Sports Curse History
Terrible Puns

and the Essay Question: Sarah Palin is giving a press conference today. In a facebook note between 600-1,000 words, make as many jokes as you possibly can.

Would I pass that no problem? You Betcha.

Luckily for me, the first two math questions were the exception, and the rest of my 120 question exam focused on things I actually know. I’m pretty confident that my results will show that I know enough about fractions and basic American history to be trusted in front of 3rd graders.

More importantly though, I know how to answer when some smaralec asks “when are we going to use this?”

EDITORIAL DISCLAIMER:

THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS TERRIBLE PUNS THAT DEVIATE FROM THE TYPICAL IHEARDITDOWNTOWN PG-13 AUDIENCE.  IF YOU ARE MORE MATURE THAN A 15 YEAR OLD BOY, SKIP THIS ARTICLE AND READ THE ONE MATT STRUHAR WROTE ABOUT GAZA INSTEAD.

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“Dude, pause the game for a second. You gotta see this headline”
“Wait, is this the Onion? Is this a joke?”
“No man. Its real. Porn Industry asks for 5 Billion Federal Bailout”
“Man, I kinda thought the Porn Industry was built to withstand a pounding. Why would they need a bailout?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty confused too. I kinda figured industries like porn were pretty recession-proof. People will always need something to get them through…hard times”
“Like beer and cigs huh? If those are failing, I guess we’re all pretty screwed.”

“yeah. What do you think though? Should we help ‘em out? The Porn industry might be too big to fail”
“You may be right. Think of all the jobs that might be lost!”
“I have to wonder if maybe this approach was too direct.”
“Are you suggesting they should have attempted some sort of reach around?”
“Maybe. Maybe they’re just being too anal about this whole thing.”
“On the other hand, can you really trust them with that much money? They might steal it all and pull out early”
“haha, these aren’t your father’s puns. These are PornoPuns!”
“Actually, these are exactly the kind of puns my dad would have made.”

“On a serious note here, why on earth would the porno industry need 5 billion dollars? I’m thinking here, and I can’t envision any kind of expense that would justify that. People don’t see adult movies for the CGI graphics and expansive scenery right?”
“I doubt it. You don’t really need to pay for top-flight writing talent here either I imagine. Where in their business model would you need 5 billion bucks? I mean, besides Joe Francis’ legal defense fund? Larry Flynt’s Viagra?”
“I’m going to do some research”
“Not on my computer you’re not!”

“I’m pretty sure Flynt and Francis were kidding about this whole thing right? I mean, I’m not really an expert on this sort of thing, but I’m pretty sure Francis is a felon. These people aren’t really model citizens”
“Yeah, thats all true, but when you compare it to other recent government expenditures, is it really that crazy anymore? I’d rather take my chances with a pervert like Francis than forking over more billions to AIG and Co. without any accountability.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Mindless self-gratification without any regard to possible consequences. Maybe Porn and Congress aren’t so different after all. They deserve this.”
“Yeah, its not like they aren’t both full of asses.”

“Hating the New York Yankees is as American as Apple Pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax” -Mike Royko.

So all in all, I’d say I had a pretty good Christmas haul. I didn’t get any jetpacks or bulletproof clothing, but I did get plenty of socks, a few movies, and a wonderfully thoughtful book of metaphors and similes, which I can sprinkle my little articles with (like the above quote from one of my literary heroes). I certainly can’t complain with my little modest bounty.

But a few books and DVDs can’t really compare with the 400 Million Dollar gift the New York Yankees bought themselves over the holiday break. 400 Million bucks can buy a whole lot of things…but the pinstripers used it on just three baseball players…CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, and Mark Texiaria. When you add in the monster deal they signed A-Rod for last year, they’ve committed over 600 million dollars to the payroll of just 4 men.

If you’re anything like me, once we start talking numbers bigger than CC Sabathia’s expected weight in 3 years (so lets say around 400), I start to lose perspective. Let me break down these huge contracts, so you can properly understand them.

CC Sabathia, the manboob-endowed pitcher from Cleveland and Milwaukee, signed for 161 Million. His contract alone is worth roughly thee times the entire yearly payroll of the Florida Marlins. ESPN put up this nifty website, where you type in your salary, and it tells you what CC has to do to earn it. I plugged in my expected salary of 37,000 as a public school teacher for next year…which is roughly what CC makes every time HE RECORDS AN OUT. No….I’m not crying right now.

Now, clearly CC has some marketable skills that I lack. My fastball tops out at roughly 60MPH, and 40,000 people aren’t crowding into a room to watch me write a funny article (YET). I’m not going to sit here and bemoan how much money our professional athletes make, when thousands of skilled Americans are losing their jobs, and teachers and journalists sweat out every last buck. I’ll leave all that huffing and puffing to the rest of the high horse sportswriter posse. My concern isn’t that obese pitchers make too much money, but that the Yankees throwing money around like they’re playing Monopoly might ruin our American pasttime.

The other major sports in the US have a salary cap…they have a finite ceiling on what each team can spend on players each season. If a team wants to go out and sign a superstar to a huge contract, they have to plan ahead, or cut other high paid players. This system allows franchise in all cities, not just New York, Chicago and LA, to field competitive squads, if they use a little fiscal ingenuity. This system allowed for the a pro football powerhouse to appear in Indy and for great basketball teams to play in Portland, Salt Lake City and New Orleans.

Baseball has no system. Teams throw as much money at players as they want or can. Teams in smaller media markets, or who are owned by groups that suffer actual financial restraints are often borderline eliminated from signing free agents. Even if ownership had passed around plates in every church in the greater Kansas City area, the Royals had no chance of raising enough dough to sign CC Sabathia. Any decent player on their team must come from their own farm system, and if they become good after 3 or 4 years, that player will sign with the Yankees (or Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, Cubs or Mets). It becomes fiscally impossible to field a competitive team year and after year. Before opening day in April, nearly half of Major League Baseball’s teams will be out of playoff contention. Check out the payroll rankings for 2008…pretty strong correlation between a high payroll and consistent success (although there are outliers).

And lets say one of those small teams manages to pool enough dough to give a good player a huge deal. If that deal doesn’t pan out, the team is crippled for 5 years…and even if it doesn’t, they wont have the capital to surround the player with role players. When the San Francisco Giants accidentally gave Barry Zito a record setting contract, and watched in horror as he turned into the 9 year old kid from “Rookie of the Year”, they were screwed. They’re still screwed. If the Yankees or Red Sox make that mistake (JD Drew? Kevin Brown?)…they just buy another dude. Roster Management isn’t a necessary skill when you have no accountability for roster mistakes. Its why people were loath to bail out auto companies.

I understand the value of the Yankees as a “villain”…I wrote my very article article about it. We love sports partly because they have clearly defined good guys and bad guys, and the Yankees are about as clearly “The Bad Guys” as the Taliban, or Darth Vader’s crew….but having a “Bad Guy” isn’t helpful if they manage to destroy the entire sport in the process. The national sports media already pretends that baseball is only played in Boston, Chicago, New York and LA. Rampant unchecked spending could make that a reality.

I’m also aware that many small market teams have been competitive recently. The Yankees haven’t won a title in years, and the Devil Rays, (payroll 44 Million) made the World Series last year. You’ll notice that with the exception of the Twins, those tiny teams don’t have staying power. In a few years, they will have a talent fire sale, and restock to try again in 5 years. The big guns reload every year.

LA Angles outfielder Tori Hunter put it rather nicely. “Man, that’s crazy,” Angels center fielder Torii Hunter told the Times. “Those damn Yankees! They don’t play around. When they’re trying to win, they’re trying to win. It’s crazy. They just paid $27 million in luxury tax. That’s like 27 dollars to them. They don’t even care.”

They don’t even care if they turn half of baseball’s cities into irrelevancy in the process. Supervillians indeed.