Never one to shy away from a (relatively safe) controversy through poor imitation, I’ve been considering some of the other villains we have causing mischief in the fair metropolis of Washington, D.C. (as depicted following the Batman theme using my poor photoshopping skillz)

All that to say, my heart is glad to see Nathaniel carrying on with similar hopes and dreams. 

Most people are not aware of this, though, but this version was not the original draft.  I dug around a bit and found the original version:

I don’t want to be paranoid (contrary to what they’ve told you), and I hate to assume a conspiracy lies in wait behind every act of vandalism.  So, out of curiosity (and because I have time on my hands as I sit on the sofa under a blanket wondering if this sore throat means the kids have shared their Streptococcus virus with me), I utitlized Google’s handy technology to scope out the ACORN’s neighborhood.  

Here is the street view for ACORN’s address:

ACORN (or thereabouts)

I did another search for computer stores in the area (supposing someone was hypothetically in the “market” for computers) and here is what I saw.   The following are street views for areas surrounding some local computer dealers:

I’m not a burglar, so I’m not really sure what criteria one looks for in choosing a location, but to my novice eyes, I’m not seeing the appeal of choosing the ACORN office instead of the other computer stores to steal…well…computers.  

Perhaps it’s time I Lysol off my tin foil hat….the kids have probably breathed all over it.

I’m more of a gamer than I like to admit, and I’ve become more of a political junkie than I’m keen to acknowledge, so

Current-generation game systems have become increasingly integrated with the ubiquitous nature of the Internet, so now, it’s becoming somewhat common for advertising to be downloaded into video games through on-line play time (or at least that’s how I understand it).  In-game advertising has the potential to become a good revenue generator as the target audience of gamers continues to grow.

That target audience of consumers is also a target audience of voters (well, at least in part), so advertising has taken a more political bent at least for a little while.

Of course, perhaps I should have suspected something was awry when I fired up the latest Madden game and noticed that city lights surrounding the home stadium for the Cowboys looked an awful lot like the Vegas Strip.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.  If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
                
               The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
               The fifth would pay $1.
               The sixth would pay $3.
               The seventh would pay $7.
               The eighth would pay $12.
               The ninth would pay $18.
               The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
                

So, that’s what they decided to do.
                
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

“Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.”Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
                
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected.  They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men?  The real paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.  But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.  So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
                
  And so:
                
  The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
  The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
  The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
  The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
  The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
  The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
              
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
                
“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man.  He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!”
                
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man.  ”I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man.  ”Why should he get $10 back when I got only two?  The wealthy get all the breaks!”
                
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison.  ”We didn’t get anything at all.  The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
                
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him.  But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important.  They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
                
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works.  The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.  Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.  In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
               
                  David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
                  Professor of Economics
                  University of Georgia

(Whoops! Attributed to Mr. Unknown)

On Monday, a sheriff in Florida caused quite a stir when he had the audacity to mention a candidate by name – his full name — and more than a few people are outraged by the “inflammatory” statement.

I peruse far too many comments on political articles for my own good, but there I’ve seen far more actual name-calling through somewhat clever (or at least alliterative) derivations like “Shrillary” and “McSame” as well as not-so-clever versions like “McBush” and “McOld”.  

Perhaps my memory is failing me, because it’s been so long, but it seems like our former president was often referenced merely as an often truncated version of his middle initial.

Perhaps that is the problem.   Instead of using a candidate’s real name, we need to stick to shortened, modified, or satirical versions.   Dubya was kind of catchy (apparently), so I think a modified version of Mr. Obama’s name might be in order.

I kind of like Husya’.   Or, if we wanted to be a bit more proper and address him with slightly more formality, how about Husya’ ‘Bama?

Except the man atop the tower

His dying words, go ignored and unheard

As the townsfolk tune out the static.

11 O’Clock and all is well,

Except atop the tower

No whispers or screams, nor the things in between

Which we measure in little green bars.

12 O’Clock and all is well,

Especially around the tower

In the aftermath of Babel’s collapse

We struggle to find our language

And the plastic boxes plugged in our ears

Finally go silent…

Through it all I am becoming much more empathetic to the struggles of Naomi’s plight as a homemaker (a term she disdains…she prefers the title “ringmaster”).  I took Amelia to Church Sunday morning, and in the two hours (ish) we were away, the other two kids had managed to dump a nearly full box of sticky, tiny, granular, rainbow colored cereal all over the living room.  Naomi, confined to the recliner had watched helplessly through through the fuzz of painkillers. 

Actually, I exagerate.  The painkillers Naomi was on have been fairly mild and non-haze-inducing.  But, I imagine the flying rainbow speckles would have made for quite an experience if she had been a bit loopy.

Our kitchen is in a particular shambles at the moment, so we set up a blanket in the living room to have a “picnic” lunch.  Unfortunately, that first required vacuuming up the sticky, specks of technicolored cereal.  So the kids waited patiently as I cleaned up their mess.

Actually, I exagerate again.  The girls ran screaming into our room and slammed the door behind themselves.  Nathaniel scrambled up the couch in a desperate attempt to save his life from the certain peril of the vacuum cleaner.   Scale is apprently a concept lost on them.  But before I poke too much fun, Naomi recalled a time when she was terrified by the certain doom contained within the swirling vortex of an unstopped bathtub.   I have vague memories of a similar terror.

After we had had our picnic, and cleaned up the resulting mess,  I went to the pharmacy to get Naomi’s prescription filled.  When I returned, frustrated as always, from my pharmacy misadventure, I walked in the door to find a can’s worth of chips crumbled into the carpet.  Once more, the kids had taken advantage of Naomi’s state of helplessness and run amock in the living room.  Once more, I did another repetition in my exercise regimen.

We are fortunate to live close to both sets of parents, so in a state of overwhelmsed crisis, we called for backup.  Nathaniel went home with my mom, and Amelia went to Naomi’s folks.  We spent the evening with just Arden, who is the most self-sufficient of the three, but who was disappointed because she had to stay with someone “boring”. 

We watched Ella Enchanted from the warmth of a blanket fort (apparently, it was snowing in the living room, or so Arden claimed) before playing a game of Dora the Explorer “Membory.”  She then got to sleep in our floor in a Dora Futon sorta’ thing.  I think that while the other kids are away, it will be a nice chance for her to spend some quality one-on-one (and -two) time with Naomi and me. 

Hopefully she won’t be too bored these next few days with the “boring” one(s), but I guesss if things get to be too much of a ho-hum drugery, I can always fire up the ol’ vacuum cleaner to liven things back up.  The living room could use it again.