Is There No Help for the Widow’s Son?

It suddenly occurs to me that I think I forgot to mention that I’m pretty sure the “widow’s son” in that corny hidden message from The Da Vinci Code‘s dust jacket is none other than Hiram Abiff. That’s probably old news to the folks who care about Masonic/Rosicrucian whatnot, but I stumbled on it all by my little lonesome, so there it is. Follow the link to Google on Hiram Abiff and draw your own conclusions.

Patriotic Veteranism

But then again, I could be wrong...I am so tired of all the Bush/Kerry crap about military service and Vietnam. Who made up the rule that says a politician ought to be a veteran anyway, and better yet, a decorated one? Serving at all makes you a hero, but unless you have to hold up under torture or something, isn’t getting wounded just bad luck? Is it better to have a medal you didn’t really deserve, or no medal at all?

By the way, did you know that some people consider Clinton to be a draft dodger?

Now I know it ain’t patriotic, but I for one would think that if you’ve got it together enough to find yourself leading an advanced country of 300 million, you ought to be clever enough to find legally valid ways to avoid serving in a badly justified war. So I wish Bush would quit trying to deny one of the few things I actually respect him for having the sense to do.

And if your daddy doesn’t have enough clout to help you get out of it, dodging your way into a Rhodes Scholarship to wait it out at Oxford will do just fine, thank you.

Looking Forward to My Retirement

Calendar.Several of the people I work with and for are nearing retirement age, and one guy has a sign up over his desk that he’s updating every morning with the number of days till he retires on his birthday in 2006, so based on current assumptions regarding Social Security, I’ve decided to do the same for my 67th birthday.

As of right now, my whiteboard shows I’ve got only 9018 days left to go!

Bad, Bad CBS, and Bad, Bad, Who????

Who, me? (I swear I wasn't there!)I’m going to keep this short and sweet. I believe the documents CBS put out there re: Bush and the National Guard are forgeries produced in MS Word, and I’ll be very surprised if it turns out to be otherwise, so I’m embarassed for CBS as they scramble to try to make good. The PDFs smelled wrong when I first glanced at them, and I just couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was a perfect example of Blink, which is a pretty good book I’ve read as an advance reader’s copy that unfortunately hasn’t been published yet.

I’m also very disappointed to say that I’m afraid this will turn people against Kerry to the point where, were I a conspiracy theorist, I would almost suspect the Bush camp of misleading CBS on purpose to intensify and counteract the Swift boat fiasco and put the old AWOL rumors to rest at Kerry’s expense.

Overdue Comments on Bush’s RNC Speech

But then again, I could be wrong...I was listening to Bush’s RNC acceptance speech the other night, and I couldn’t help thinking that the big multi-purpose question for almost every issue Dubya touched on is, “So who picks up the tab?”

As I listened to his aw-shucks good-ol’-boy rhetoric, I found myself getting sucked into the cesspool-like vortex of the swirling promise pit and thinking, well, if it really were possible to fight active wars on multiple fronts that were moral and necessary; simultaneously cutting taxes while not raising deficits, sacrificing education, or exacerbating the gap between rich and poor; and we could make sure that Social Security and Medicare were going to be around for the people that were promised them, without cutting benefits; and the next generation (i.e., me) really could bank their retirements in a private investment with a better guaranteed return without leaving an umpteen-billion dollar hole in the existing programs; well, hell, yeah, I’d vote for this guy – but it’s all a not-very-well-woven fabric of lies, and I’d like to know who’s getting the payoff, and who’s really picking up the tab?

Them beautiful sheeps’s got the stink of wolf all over ’em, and we can’t afford to be na&#239ve. It’s not too late to register and vote. I would say, “for anybody but Bush,” but you really do need to vote for Kerry. You do the math.

What’s Up with the Coppertone Girl?

Good Ol' Fashioned CoppertoneAnother era has come to an end.Wassup with this newfangled logo?

Last night while I was grocery shopping, I happened to look closely at an endcap display of Coppertone™ products, and I noticed that the Coppertone Girl&reg has lost her tan line. That’s right, that’s what I said, she’s got no freakin’ tan line. I guess Coppertone decided that it was just not PC to have a tan line on their marketing mascot in the new era of SPF 150. I’m sure the sunblock line has been outselling the tanning lotions, so I guess they’re just showing good fiscal responsibility. But still…

It’s Helpful to Know Your “Times Tables.”

World Famous Asparagus Pee Duh! AwardIn breaking news, a study in Exeter, England has confirmed something that I’ve suspected all along: you can do math problems faster and better if you memorize your times tables.

Alas, I did not bring this task to its full fruition, and even though I got a “C” or better up through Differential Equations, to this day I get really fuzzy in the 7-8-9 region of the multiplication problem space. Which reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:

Q: Why was six afraid of seven?

A: Because seven ate nine.