2008.12.02 it was a good day:
This morning when I went out to my car, my driver's side door was frozen shut. This, of course, agitated me. I grumbled, of course. What a shitty way to start my day, right? So I climbed in the passenger side and I was on my way. I forgot to get out to Kroger, last night, so I had to stop into McD's for a sausage biscuit. I hit the drive through. The girl starts talking…and my window won't roll down! Frozen! FUCK!
I try the door…STILL FROZEN! DOUBLE FUCK!
So I pull around and park the car, bitching up a storm to myself. When I get to the door, the one on that side of the building…LOCKED!
MOTHERFUCKERS! What the fuck is up with this shitty day?!
So I walk around. I get inside, the transaction takes 30 seconds, tops. I have a little laugh with the girl about my morning, and I was out the door.
When I went outside, I saw ol' Bob S. across the street. I had seen him waiting for the TARC there a few times, but never thought to stop. I asked him where he was headed, and it was on my way to work, so I gave him a ride.
I hadn't seen Bob in a while, so it was nice to catch up. He's not really drinking, anymore. He's got a good job. He's living with his girlfriend. He's got a good new band going. He's in a good place. I dropped him off at work and told him he's always got a ride in to work, if he wants it, as it's on my way. No sense in standing in the cold, waiting on a TARC.
I turned it over in my head, on the rest of the way into work. It was nice to see Bob. To reconnect. And then I realized, had my car door not been frozen shut, I wouldn't have had to get out of the car. Had the door not been locked at McDonald's, I wouldn't have walked around. Had I not walked around, I wouldn't have seen Bob and had that chance to reconnect.
This isn't one of those "all things happen for a reason" type of things. I mean…it's fairly simple: Had those things all not happened, I would not have seen Bob. There's a stark zen-ness to it.
And, of course, through the magic of thermodynamics (and/or karma, if you so choose), my car door opened fine, once I got to work.
Good things happened, though I thought they wouldn't.
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brian. said:
I'm a liberal and I'm personally sick and tired of people on welfare not out trying to get a goddamn job. If I have to work a fucking job I hate everyday, then they should have to, as well.
Same goes with illegal immigrants. Become a citizen and contribute to this nation or drain the resources of where you came from. I don't think this is a racist point of view. I have no problem with immigrants who are in this country legally. It's the ones that are here ILLEGALLY that suck up public money like welfare and the like. Money that they've never paid taxes to fund, themselves.
Javan said:
Brian, amen! I agree with both of those points wholeheartedly. Couldn't have said it better myself.
However, we shouldn't consider removing Bush from office for skewed intelligence- it seems to be perfectly OK with us if our presidents lie these days anyway. Clinton lied out his arse all the time and he didn't get removed.
m@ said:
Brian, i agree that the welfare system is in dire need of an overhaul. We don't need to get rid of it, and, while we need to make sure (more now than ever i'd say) that the people who truly *need* it *get* it, we also need to make sure that the people who *can* work, *do* work, and that they don't stay on welfare. As for the illegal immigrant thing, yeah, we need to make sure that people here illegally aren't receiving public money, and that they're either sent home, or assisted towards citizenship.
As for the tax thing, i'd say that 80% of the people on welfare have never paid income taxes anyway, as they're most likely all low income earners from low income families. Does that mean they shouldn't get welfare, no? What it means is that they, more than any group, need more help to get on their feet and on their way to becoming *productive* citizens.
How exactly to reform the system with these goals is a subject best discussed elsewhere.
and Javan, i never actually suggested Bush be removed from office. I said he should be impeached, just as Clinton was, for lying (actually Clinton was impeached for perjury, but that's just a more official form of lying). If we removed Bush, then Cheney would be President, and God knows that'd probably be even worse than what we've got now. my "war tribunal" statement was probably going a little far, but it's probably not totally unwarranted.
paul said:
a lot less people died for clinton's lies.
Javan said:
All I can say is that a lie is still a lie.
And, Matt, I noticed that you did only say impeach- I meant, too, that Bush shouldn't be removed from office (it's own point) but I see the impeachment process pretty pointless if it doesn't end in any result. The two times it has been implemented on a President, it has been pointless.
m@ said:
sure a lie is still a lie, but there's a difference between a lie that costs $15.00 for dry-cleaning a blue dress, and a lie that costs thousands of human lives. you can't tell me that the lie that kills isn't worse than the lie that doesn't.
and the impeachment process *is* a bit pointless if there's no result, but the conservatives sure didn't care when they wasted millions in taxpayer dollars to impeach Clinton.
Javan said:
Yeah, I think we are both in agreement that *impeaching* is worthless of itself, and that it should not be used where the circumstances do not truly merit it.
Also, I am waiting for the fact to be proven that the intelligence was, in fact, a direct fabricated lie. I do not think it was.
Politicians are corrupt. We know this. However, if for no other reason, and I think that even you, Matt, can agree with this, we can look up to Bush Jr. and the father for the fact that they do what they believe is right, regardless of the electability that it gets them. It certainly doesn't get them much. But I admire the family for doing what they truly believe is right, and I think that we need more politicians to do that, whether they be liberal or conservative.
m@ said:
well, either way, something needs to be done to restore faith in the checks & balances system. moveon.org is making a big push towards having Congress censure (officially, strongly reprimand) the president because of his misleading the country.
as for the facts, how's this:
Bush presented Iraq as an imminent threat to the U.S., he stated, without reservation, that they had major ongoing WMD projects, that they'd even been attempting to purchase "significant quantities of uranium from Africa".
1. George Tenet said Iraq was never considered an imminent threat, and that any suspected constinuing weapons programs were matters of considerable debate among various analysts at the CIA.
2. David Kay said "we were all wrong" about Iraq's suspected WMD programs
3. There have been no solid links shown between Saddam and Al Quaeda.
Finally, it is a matter of record that, within the first two weeks of his Administration, the President and his handlers were *already* talking about regime change in Iraq. It was one of their first orders of business after the transition. The intelligence was the intelligence, Bush and his administration just saw what they wanted to see, ignored the reservations and warnings of the experts, even ignored that some of their facts were disproved nearly a year before they were presented to the public (the uranium claim). They knew the public wouldn't support an invasion on the "moral" grounds that Saddam was a bad guy who should be gotten rid of, so they exaggerated the facts to make their case–they lied.
Well, unfortunately, there's a difference between what someone *thinks* is right, and what actually is right. And if Bush thinks that everything he's done is right, then he doesn't deserve to be the President of this nation. And i'm not talking about a liberal versus conservative thing here, i'm talking about the fact that we have the largest budget deficit ever, he continues to cut taxes while the deficit grows and the debt mounts ever higher, he creates new programs that give handouts to large corporations (the medicare bill) and free-reign to polluters (the Clear Skies stuff, and the Energy Bill), and he underfunds social programs while imposing new restrictions and requirements upon them.
In essence, he is creating a massive debt for you and your children by handing out our money & their money to large corporations, to the people through massive tax cuts, all while cutting funding to programs (some of which he created!) that help significant segments of our citizenry.
His economic and domestic policies are not conservative, they're irresponsible and damaging to our nation.
brooksie said:
- "But I admire the family for doing what they truly believe is right, and I think that we need more politicians to do that, whether they be liberal or conservative." -
While there is definately something to be said for standing up for your convictions, I think upholding a personal idea of morality is a far cry from making decisions for an entire country. Not to mention the fact that personal ideals and agendas tend to drive and encourage corruption in our government, and every government throughout history. And if you mean to say "doing what they truly believe is right (for the United States)" , then judging by local and international reactions to recent actions by the US, I am very skeptical of our President's judgement. It is the Presidents job to uphold the will of the people in the best interests of the country. We do not (supposedly) live under tyranny.
Unfortunately, our governement does not represent what I "truly believe is right" for the U.S. and that is why I will be voting the current administration out of office come election time. Because in the end, Ricky Henderson has to do what's best for Ricky Henderson.
m@ said:
There's nothing wrong with morality itself–with having morals and expressing them. The problems arise when one person attempts to impose his morals on another person. Even murder isn't illegal because of the morality of it, murder is illegal because it infringes on the victim's rights.
As for Bush "doing what he thinks is right"… there is a problem with the manner in which he does it. He's all but flatly stated that he doesn't care about public opinion–he feels that his election (divinely ordained, no less) was a "mandate" from the people to puruse his agenda and ideologies. The problem here is that, it is the responsibility of the representatives of this democracy to represent the will and best interests of the whole people, not simply the majority (oh, wait, he wasn't elected by a majority of the population…) or the large corporate donors. I think Bush has forgotten (or never cared about) his responsibility to all the citizens of the U.S.
He promised in 2000 to have a "humble" foreign, he promised that his Administration would follow Bill Clinton's lead by *not* running a deficit and by paying down the national debt. He promised to be a "compassionate conservative", but his Administration has the worst fiscal record in history next to (i think) Hoover's, he's lost more jobs than every other President in history except (again, i think) Hoover, he's promoted and pushed for an illegitimate war against Iraq, a Medicare bill that doles out billions of dollars to insurance carriers and pharmeceutical companies while providing only the barest of improvements in coverage (where there's any improvement at all) for those who need it the most. His administration is responsible for the Patriot Act which includes some serious strikes against civil liberties. He has consistently pushed to reduce or remove regulations effecting the largest industrial polluters, or those companies who produce products which contribute to pollution (oil industry), which will have serious detrimental impact on our environment.
He has proven to be neither compassionate, nor conservative, and he hasn't stuck to the important promises he made during his election campaign. The unimportant ones he's kept pushing, like his campaign against same-sex marriage, removal of the separation between church & state, privitization of every damn thing imaginable (i.e. giving my money to his biggest contributors), etc. etc.
I don't like him. But even more telling is that even Bill O'Reilly (along with many other Conservative pundits, legislators, and party big-wigs) has become annoyed with him.
Pick up the phone, Ricky. Pick up the phone.