The Second Archive of letters to The Hittman Chronicle.
Visit the first archive here.
I was amused by your pungent commentary on the Elian affair. What can be said except that Clinton and gang have an odd idea of "child welfare" in which tanks and helicopter-mounted gatling guns play a large role?
G'day ....
-The Meme Engineerright the fuck on man! health impairing obesity { i.e. bean bag women (futon?)} disgusts me....it is a fetish thing not shared by the general population...i love food and come from fat genes but I don't feel attractive at more then 20 pounds over my size/weight ratio...fatness is okay...being so large you impair your lifestyle, or base your lifestyle around your weight are different...the first is very unfortunate (read 'I pity the fool') the latter is like a strange personal hobby...
-jgraef
I think we are of the same mind set when it comes to being fat and NAAFA. I am fat, and I have merit, and there are some people out there with a fat bias. They don't bother me, and I don't too often bother them. I have a great job, in a mostly male segment (I work as a sysadmin/dba in a telco), in spite of being a fatass.
I think it's all about self esteem, which I think you must have by the bundle :) I have been hanging out on many of the fat net sites lately looking to promote my business (a scenic tour company that caters to mobily challenged and outright lazy campers) and I am often amazed at the prevalence of the "fat victim." I probably piss off a few because I like you, claim ownership of my fat ass and all the woes that come with it. I don't diet because it doesn't sound like fun. I also think that a majority of the perceived oppression that the fat get is actually the fat person's low self esteem that is preventing them from attaining their goal and placing them in the laughing stock bin.
Again, I was super-impressed with your web site and it's message :)
Best wishes!
Mindy Cassingham
http://www.wayoutwesttours.com
Smokers revenge! For hundreds of years people smoked and others around them just accepted it. Then they started harassing us smokers and all of a sudden airline stewardesses started getting breast cancer and now millions of people are allergic to second hand cigarette smoke. Then the attorneys sued the tobacco companies and forced them to raise prices to give out billions of dollars to the attorneys who sued them.
Now that millions of people have stopped smoking and can smell the world around them, they are suddenly uncomfortable with the cheesy perfumes of those people who complained about smoking.
I thought the story was rather funny as I once had the following experience.
I had stepped outside of my office and went downstairs to smoke a cigarette. There was an ATM at the bottom of the building. Being in Florida where it is very hot, and in a suit, I stood under the overhang about 50 feet from the ATM. Some middle aged women stinking of $1 Woolworth cheap perfume had the nerve to ask me to put my cigarette out because the smell offended her. I replied that her perfume stunk worse than my cigarette and she got very offended and said very nasty things to me and walked away in a huff.
I hope the no perfume law goes worldwide so that all those jackasses who complained about cigarettes smelling bad can get a taste of their own medicine. Also, I suffer from severe hayfever and other allergies and walking through places like the perfume counter at bloomingdales gives me very severe headaches. Being in a restaurant with a bunch of women stinking of perfume does the same. This is not an imaginary problem. Good perfume is made from flowers and other plant like stuff (as well as from ox balls). For those with allergies to plants, trees and flowers, excessive perfumes can cause a severe allergic reaction, which in my case results in very severe headaches. I just had to reply as I have been secretly hoping that all those idiots who complained about smokers will get their payback.
-- B.P.
Payback is a bitch, isn't it? Now that we've cowed the tobacco companies, we're trying the same thing with gun companies and paint companies (for the lead paint they stopped making fifty years ago). Fat is next on the list, and cars seems to be a likely prospect. ("Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, GM made this car capable of going eighty five miles an hour, when they knew that was illegal and that speed kills.")
If we don't reign in the lawyers, and there is little indication that we will, we're going to be sitting in a country containing little more than empty factories and wealthy attorneys.
Another good issue of the Hittman Chronicles. I must commend you. Everyone is a victim these days. I know a nurse who works in a physician's office. They laugh at the hypochondriacs who visit all the time. The lady in that link from your site sounds like she has manic/depressive disorder. She described herself as feeling great in her life before being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in '89, another non-disease affecting middle aged white women we haven't seen in the news lately. Like the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion, car jackings, babies stolen in Mexico for the drug trade, etc., these are all stories by reporters at their desks on a slow news day.
Funny how no one complained of these maladies back in the 40's and 50's when there was a lot more air/water pollution and exposure to strange new chemicals, and quite a few women worked in the factories during WWII. Another disease I think is being way over publicized is asthma. Sure, there are a lot of people with asthma. Terrible. It's the 300 or 400 pound people who complain they can't walk up stairs or do any stressful activity like lifting groceries into their vehicle, which is always parked crooked in a handicapped parking space. These folks always have an inhaler handy and will blame their problem on some inanimate object or other people. Maybe if they dropped a couple tons they wouldn't have 'asthma' and they would feel better. A friend of my mother's has a difficult time going to hockey and baseball games here in Rochester because of her 'asthma'. She's about 100 lbs. overweight, hasn't worked since the 70's, her youngest 4 of her 12 kids are on Ritalin, her husband is in real estate and is never around, and she blames the stairs at the stadium for her malady. Next time they build a stadium here, they should place all the seats on a flat plain with the field, so people like her can have it easier.
Thank you for an entertaining site. Your commentary on the newsgroup on drugs was well received. I agree with you that the U.S. would be smart to sell the stuff over the counter, that way we could identify folks with the problem and treat them. It shouldn't be such a taboo subject. I also agree there would be no harm in growing/ processing the stuff here. Why not? The politicians fall over themselves over these budget surpluses we keep hearing about. Put a 4% tax on narcotics and watch the coffers overflow. Sell regulated and safe narcotics, use the taxes for treatment, and it will get rid of the underground drug trade.
The other thing I can't stand is how our society has a tough time with humor and making fun of ourselves. That's why shows like South Park appeal to me. They'll rip on anyone from Kathy Lee to Barbara Streisand, and will touch on almost any subject, without fear of frothing at the mouth uptight people. We have an increasingly sensitive society, and I saw it first hand in the military. Now I know one of the root reasons why there are school shootings and angry kids these days. Not enough discipline and too much parental excuses for their kids' behavior, as well as a touchy-feely approach to schooling our kids and too much buying children's affection. Our society has become too sensitive, to the point of being anal.
My overweight friends and relatives don't complain about their situation either. They place the blame squarely on their own shoulders and do something about it, like quit smoking and exercise a little. I like to eat too, and it takes a lot of discipline for me not to keep from consuming large quantities of carbs and fat. I'm also into exercising lately and I try to keep a constant weight. I commend you for doing something about your weight. It's not easy. Life's not easy.
-Dennis
And it's even harder if you take it too seriously.
I bow to your Buddha nature, as Ben Stein would say.
I had some of the same hellish experiences you mentioned with RR. After the 15 year old with a drill came and installed the extra cable line into my house, an even dimmer witted fellow showed up bearing the cable modem. Because I had NT Server running, and RR uses DHCP, I was going to have to do a complete rebuild. So all the guy did was call in the MAC address of the Modem and hand me the book explaining the setup. And they charge for this setup?
After I had it installed and operational for a week, the cable started coming and going. It took 3 weeks before a service tech finally came out, at my wife's request, to fix their shit. It turned out, the cable was never tightened at the junction box. And they kept trying to make it sound like it was probably some software setup on my system. Right now, Cable has a cheaper cost/bandwidth ratio but as soon as DSL starts to cost the same or less, its adios RR.
-David Solomon
You don't know what yer talkin' about. Time-Warner, owner of RR, is one of those fine ultra left-liberal organizations and would NEVER EVER do any such despicable things.
Would they?
Best,
Tom Scheeler
Dave, I used to see your posts to alt.culture.ny-upstate but gave up on the newsgroup when King Jerry started spewing his 51st state garbage even after he started his own newsgroup for the subject.
I was wondering if RR has gotten any better since your problems last year. T-W just introduced RR to Glens Falls last month and I've been contemplating hooking up with them.
Bob Reardon
Yes, they have improved dramatically since I wrote that article, at least in this area. Outages are much less common, their e-mail doesn't break nearly as much, and their web page hosting is tolerable. (Although, just before I moved this site to a regular host, they lost the pages for a day and a half, and replaced them with pages that were about two weeks old.) I don't know if their usenet servers are still useless - I gave up on them a long time ago and now pay someone else for reliable service.
But overall, they have improved dramatically.
Yeah, y'know...I was at the Albany show, and didn't it strike you as odd that Zevon-despite the proliferation of apes and dorks- couldn't just stop bitching for a few moments? I mean, his comments like ""Ii like Albany. I'm glad to be here. Well, not HERE..." I mean, I like the guy. God knows, I'd have killed if he made good on his threat to play "nothing but Steve Earle and new songs". The older stuff- well, the over commercial stuff bores me a bit. But Christ! He can't fill Valentine's, which is not a bad club as rock bars go. He never came close to filling Saratoga Winners. Stop being an ass-whining know it all, Zevon, and play! I really think he needs to shut the f**%k up and deal with his situation, or remedy it. For my part, I feel 20 dollars was way too steep for that bad-time therapy session.
Did you know that:
1. the locks used on the bathroom and back room door had to be changed for him, and they HAD to be American locks.
2. the staff (good friends and former co workers of mine) were forbidden to look at him directly.Brother.
Tom Brennan
(Note for readers from elsewhere: Valentine's is a bar with an average bar sized concert area. Saratoga Winners is a barn sized venue.)
Great site. I found it from your link to the TOTM pages.
Really enjoyed the write up on the Zevon show. I saw him in a burnout bar in Northampton, Mass., a few years ago when I lived up that way.
We're going to smoke those trolls. They want me to apologize? Hell, I haven't even begun to get rude!
Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Cheers,
Jim KearmanYou RULE!!!!
'nuf said.
Stacey Serafin
Great page, Dave.
I think you are about to hear this for millionth time. Our freedoms are being trampled upon. This is how ganja smokers have felt since the thirties.
Greetz
i don't think that your article was that amusing!!! I 'm a single mother of two and this is how i make my living. All you really have to say is "i'm not interested". If you feel like we intrude your privacy, then change your damn phone number!!!!!!
Anita Hollowwa
There is no defense for being the complete pain in the ass that telemarketers are. I was interrupted by three of them today. And I did my damnedest to make their day as miserable as possible. There are plenty of single mothers who have jobs that don't entail harassing people in their homes. Chose a job that isn't as despicable as telemarketing (i.e. anything other than being a spammer or a lawyer) and you won't have to be so defensive.
Changing my number wouldn't even slow your ilk down, with your automated dialers that often hang up in people ears. And even if it would work, why should *I* have go out of my way because you insist on an uncivilized, intrusive, indefensible career?
PS. I may be doing a new article on this subject, with new, improved ways to make your ilk even more miserable. So be sure to bookmark this site!
I'm rolling on the floor, here.
I can't believe I've never 'Hitt' any of your links before. 2 in one day-- [the flyingbuttmonkeys started me].
Thanks for the chuckles,
Jim
The Facts
(The Facts is another site of mine, hosted under the same domain as this one.)Either you are a tobacco adict (sic) or the tobacco industry pays you big money for all the misinformation in your site. How can you live with yourself?
(Name withheld)
Why is it that the first response of the rabid anti-smokers is to assume the tobacco companies are behind it? Could it be that they are so incapable of thinking for themselves and looking beyond the status quo they assume everyone else suffers from the same short sighted ness?
For the record, I'm as disgusted with the ciggrettes companies as anyone else. This entire site is the result of my own work, and has no backing from the tobacco industry, or any other industry.
What misinformation? The site was very carefully fact checked by several different people in several areas of expertise, but if you can find an error, please point it out to me.
(Note: I haven't received a reply yet.)
It would be funny if it weren't so tragic! I've been voting since Johnson/Goldwater and I don't think I've ever voted for a winner.
Makes me think better of Nevada to know that they have the NOTA thing. Desperately needed here.
Carry on!
-- Cheers, BevThe Only Way to Curb Teen Smoking
Finally.. the voice of intelligence. I can't agree with you more that its not ignorance of the risks involved with smoking that causes kids to smoke.. it's the glamor of going against the grain of what society and authority figures frown upon. I think the media lies profusely about the statistics of teen smokers and marijuana junkies. I would say a good 80-85% of high school students have experimented with smoking cigarettes and/or marijuana at one time. Making it seem like less people smoke up only encourages kids to do it more since they are 'not conforming' to the norm. Most kids with smoking parents don't smoke because they think its a smelly and disgusting habit.
On the drive home today, I heard another self proclaimed expert in drug counseling encouraging parents to discourage children verbally from taking drugs. This is the wrong approach. I think only you and a minority of enlightened elders understands the real adversary here... popularity.
Thanks for taking the time to listen! Have a great day.
-Julia
Hi, I read your article on reducing the "cool" in teen smoking because you believe teenagers will not smoke. I think that image and cliques have a lot to do with smoking, and also the risk. But being in high school myself, I think a lot of my peers would stop smoking if they knew what smoking causes. I go to a public school and we have no programs for smoking or drug prevention..only drinking. Teens know they are taking a risk when they take a cigarette but they don't realize what actually happens. Instead of your idea of making it not seem like such a big deal, maybe if we told everyone what really happens it would have a bigger affect.
Bielle
You missed the point of the article. I don't believe that "teenagers will not smoke." I believe they'll always be smoking teenagers, but the current steady stream of propaganda helps create more of them.
Is there anyone, anywhere in the US, who doesn't know that smoking is dangerous? We are constantly bombarded with that message, from all sides, from all media, all the time. More hammering just makes it more appealing to the very people the bombardiers claim they're trying to reach.
The Dumbest Letter So Far This arrived as an empty message, with all the text jammed into the subject header.
From: <withheld>
To: hittman@bigfoot.com
Subject: Nice site but I will not be back due to your smokers right link due to the fact I am highly alergic (sic) to tobaco (sic) smokeI see from your address that you're writing from Florida. I'm located in upstate NY. You must be really allergic if it bothers you from 1200 miles away. And really, really allergic to have such a reaction to a link.
And The First Runner Up for Dumbest Letter So Far
(Referring to the "Smokers World" web ring on the home page)
From:<withheld>@aol.com
Subject: Re: http://home.nycap.rr.com/hittman/Wait, wait, this is priceless....you've gotta be kiddding! (sic) A webring of smokers?? Okay, now that weve (sic) got the majority of dumbasses all in one room, what the hell do we do with 'em?...This is killin' me.....hehehe...
Yeah, you're right. Smokers are such stupid people. People like Alexander Graham Bell, Mark Twain, Neils Bohr, John Cheever, Albert Einstein, Arthur Miller, Charlie Mingus, Fran Lebowitz, Ernest Hemingway, Groucho Marx, W.C. Fields, Sir Isaac Newton, P. J. O'Rourke, A.A Milne, Alfred Lord Tennyson, H.L.Mencken, David Bowie, James Thurber, Robert Oppenheimer, Gen. George Patton, Winston Churchill, Sigmund Freud and Thomas Edison, to name a few.
Meanwhile, you're posting from an AOL address.
I've just read your article about the recording industry and their war against "pirating" of music. I have one quibble with it: You uncritically accept their estimates of "lost sales," which are formed on a basis that ensures that the numbers are complete and total bullshit.
What they do is estimate (translation, "take a wild-assed guess") how many "illegal" copies of songs are made in a given year. Then they multiply that by the retail cost of the albums containing those songs.
This is patently absurd, as it rests on the assumption that every single one of those copies represents a lost sale. (The software industry does the same thing, BTW.)
I've downloaded a few MP3 files myself. Let me pick just one example: I have a copy of "Cruel Summer" by Bananarama. It would cost me $18 (or whatever) to get a copy of this on CD, so the recording industry "lost" $18, right? If there were the slightest chance whatsoever that I would ever go to the trouble of buying such a CD, they'd have a point. Of course, there is no such chance, so the point is moot. I like the song well enough; it's the kind of thing for which I turn up the radio when it comes on. But I don't care to own it.
Most of my MP3 files fall into this category. Some others are tracks from CD's I already own. I downloaded them because I like having them here on the PC, available to play while I'm working. (Or goofing off.)
Yet others are tracks from CD's that are just completely out of print. (I got a lot of great old Tom Lehrer stuff that way. It simply can't be had any other way.) I don't maintain that they're ever going to get revenue from the presence of this file on my system. I simply point out that they are lying (and I'm sure you're as SHOCKED as I am!) when they make up these numbers.
Yeah, MP3 files probably represent some short-term lost revenue. It may or may not be offset by the effects you describe in your article; I don't know. I know that their assumptions and the accompanying PR is designed more to influence public policy in their favor than to illuminate the facts of the situation.
jd
I'm always critical of anyone's numbers, and agree that the recording industry is just making a wild-assed guess. Their guess comes out to about a buck a person in the US, so it's not as unreasonable as it could be. But you're right, it's still just a guess, and a guess by a very self serving industry at that.
It's always good to hear from another Tom Lehrer fan. No one ever came close to his wit and style. He retired from comedy music early, but he retired undefeated.
I'm not sure the short term revenue loss will be offset either. It's just a wild-assed guess.
The Diallo Trial I went to the police academy. We were taught to shoot till the subject dropped their weapon or was dead. The standard training course taught to empty the weapon into the subject. This was a wheel gun though, six weak shots to stop someone. Now with the big mag 9mm's and 45's that's a lot of lead.
David
I have to say that I disagree intensely with your general thesis in "The Verdict". Despite the prosecution’s attempt to portray the neighborhood where Diallo was shot as a place where you’ll meet Wally and The Beave coming down the street, we’re talking about an area in the Bronx where drug dealers will fire off an entire clip just to let you know they’re pissed at somebody (and the somebody need not be present). Cops in New York can be shot for no rational reason. A number of years ago, a rookie cop named Eddie Byrne was murdered while sitting in a marked patrol car just because some local BMF thought that he had been 'dissed' several days earlier. In New York, a member of a much hated anti-crime squad who isn't ready to defend himself at every moment probably thinks that his family members have always wanted an up-close look at a police funeral.
The police angle aside (and even knowing that ‘blaming the victim’ is a capital crime in this day and age), anyone who looks at four armed men (whether they’re police officers, muggers, or moonlighting circus clowns) and reaches into his coat while they’re telling him to put his hands up is setting himself up for a lot of unpleasantness. Do I regret the death of Diallo? Of course I do. The same goes for my feelings for his family. Three years ago, I came as close as you can get to losing a child without scheduling a funeral, and I still can't fully conceive of how they must feel. I am, however, satisfied with the verdict.
The cops fired in what they thought was a life-threatening circumstance. In a situation where ricocheting slugs left them with the feeling that there was return fire, they kept shooting until the target went down. The coroner’s testimony (in which he stated as a fact that Diallo fell after the first bullet hit him) was extremely flawed. The defense’s rebuttal witness is an internationally known expert on the subject of post-mortem examination of gunshot wounds, and he trashed the theories and conclusions of the coroner - most especially the conclusion that Diallo fell early on.
What happened that night was tragic. A man who ought to be alive today is not, due to a fatal mixture of the wrong time, the wrong place, nervous cops, and inexplicable behavior on the part of the victim. But your conclusion that something criminal happened that requires the jailing of men doing a hard job to the best of their ability requires a leap of logic that I'm not willing to take with you.
Best,
Rich
If everyone agreed with me the world would be a much duller place (especially for me) and I wouldn't have any reason to write The Hittman Chronicle.
Thanks for the long and thoughtful reply.
Congratulations, Hittman! After several articles in a row from which you built up experience, you have now returned with wit, humor, and facts but without the slanted, half-truth ranting which you so much deride.
The chart is great!
You may remember a pro-abortion bumper sticker that has been and still is somewhat around. It stated: "Keep your laws off my body." Isn't it amazing that nannies will not accept government telling them what to do, but they just salivate to have government tell non-nannies what to do?!? I agree with your assessment: New Racists.
Brent N. Winkelman
Very thought provoking.
I think you're on to something. Did you know that almost everyone I've talked to who has worked at an abortion clinic has a story to tell about someone (female) who they have seen picketing out front come in at one point for an abortion? Sanctity of life, unless it's inconvenient to them, I guess.
If you update these every month, I'll have to bookmark your site.
--Eva Whitley
I try to write an article a week, but it usually works out to about three per month, so visiting once a month would be about right.
What a load of crap, you can say all you like but if anyone doesn't agree with you well that's something else. Look at all the facts, and wake up, better still keep your heads in the sand.
Gee it's good to be a non nicotine junkie, now scurry away like a cockroach to get your nico fix.
By the way why drop the ler from your surname, that would really take the cake and it sure would make sense why you have that site. bye bye dropkick.
-joe biki
Thanks, Joe, for proving my point so well.
By the way, I only have one head.
The Only Way to Curb Teen Smoking
Finally.. the voice of intelligence.
I can't agree with you more that its not ignorance of the risks involved with smoking that causes kids to smoke.. it's the glamor of going against the grain of what society and authority figures frown upon. I think the media lies profusely about the statistics of teen smokers and marijuana junkies. I would say a good 80-85% of high school students have experimented with smoking cigarettes and/or marijuana at one time. Making it seem like less people smoke up only encourages kids to do it more since they are 'not conforming' to the norm. Most kids with smoking parents don't smoke because they think its a smelly and disgusting habit.
On the drive home today, I heard another self proclaimed expert in drug counseling encouraging parents to discourage children verbally from taking drugs. This is the wrong approach. I think only you and a minority of enlightened elders understands the real adversary here... popularity.
Thanks for taking the time to listen! Have a great day.
Julia
D.A.R.E. Dave's Absolutely Realistic Education Hi
Haven't read through all of the related links on your page yet; but did grab a larger version of your "dare-parent.gif" to crank out a T-shirt for my nephew, who teaches middle school in Ohio.
After he opens it on Christmas, I'll ask him if his situation is the same as it is here in Saranac Lake -- "Graduation" in late Spring of 6th grade; & totally uncool to wear the D.A.R.E. T-shirt to school a few months later in 7th grade. I'd never gotten an explanation from my kids as to why that was -- possibly because it makes them look like elementary school kids? (elementary & middle schools share the same facility here.) I haven't done a scientific survey, but will go out on a limb & agree that the D.A.R.E program ain't what it's cracked up to be (pun intended)
-Steve
Roadrunner - We Suck Faster
This is such a good line, I had to share it.
A customer of RR was posting a complaint on the tech group about how he can't upload worth crap and was looking for a solution. My answer: You're more likely to have a winning lottery ticket struck by lightening than to have your problem solved by RR. Anyway, I thought that was pretty good.
Jeff
It was better than pretty good. It was better than any of my lines in the original article. I hate you.
As a former RR user (since RR became RR) I can only agree with you. I now live in Florida and have an ADSL. Fast, reliable, good tech support. Unfortunately, RoadRunner is due here sometime in the "near" future. Everyone I talk to says it will be better than ADSL. I think not. If I ever move back to Ohio I will get RR again (I do like the speed, when it's working), but my bitching about down time will now include a comparison to ADSL. It's too bad we are all hooked on "speed." Maybe, in our wildest dreams, Road Runner will some day get hooked on us.
Tek
Interesting page and argument. However, one line stands out like a sore thumb:
"His father's wishes are not as important as his mother's."
Should this be applied equally, in US-only cases as well? If not, why not?
Not a bonehead,
LynneI think you missed one of the most important points of the article, that this is a unique situation, and should be handled as such.
I feel so strongly about this (specific) issue I overused the word "bonehead." I'm almost tempted to go back and edit it, but I avoid doing that. I'll just leave it as is and try to be more creative next time.
After reading some of the trash posted about this in various newsgroups, I was beginning to wonder whether anyone out there thought the boy's mother's intentions counted for anything. I got an e-mail, which I ignored, from some fool ranting about the father's parental rights, as if the father's preferences could actually be determined once Fidel got involved. Your article was excellent!
Sincerely, Joe H. Bennett, Jr.
Fathers are so routinely screwed in family court their reaction, and sometimes overreaction, to anything interfering with fathers rights is understandable. But this is a unique case, and you bring up a very good point about determining the fathers preferences. I have no idea if the family courts in Cuba are as screwed up as they are over here, but considering their location...
What if the mother had survived? If she had, the media would have ignored the story. It would have just been another Cuban escaping to the US, a tale of risk and bravery too dull for the media. It's not news - news is something that doesn't happen every day.
It appears that your words do, in fact, impact our culture at large. Not one week after you questioned the future of the relationship between the robust Rosie O'Donnell and the free-spirited corporate entity Kmart, did they part ways. Nevermore shall we hear Rosie crooning "The Blue Light that Shines in the Night!" at Christmastime.
I fear the worst is upon us.
Absalom!
Don Howe
What I find most annoying is the spin they're not putting on this. When Fuzzy Zoller made his racist comments about Tiger Woods, K-Mart canned him and condemned him with sternly worded press releases within 24 hours. I admired them for that. But they're letting Rosie off the hook as gently as possible. (Rosie on a hook - now there's a pleasant graphic image.) Wimps.
If my words do have that much of an impact, and really make things happen in the real world, you have good reason to be afraid. On the other hand, it's great news for me. My next article will be about how I won the lottery the day before the Victoria Secret models stopped by. (Or maybe you shouldn't be afraid - I'd invite you to the party. No need to bring beer, they brought a keg of Bass Ale with them.)
Hi, Dave ! Or should I greet you with a simple "DAAAAVEE !" in flashing lights and twinkles ? Thank God I got to read your site ! I've been pissed at that porker Rosie for months, but have not *once* found so much as one negative electron raised against her and her whacko "beliefs". I loved it ! Thanks so much for posting the site and the links. You made my day, Dave.
K-mart did drop Her Holiness - or, rather, did not renew her contract when it ends this year - by mutual assent. Wonder if it was because they didn't bow to her whims. Y'see, our local one sells guns. Yup. Bullets too. So that Christmas shopping with Penny Marshall ad that seems to have only run once that I saw (and, again, thank God for that !) will be it. Wonder if they'll still sell her Barbie-slim fashion doll. Now *there's* some false advertising!
Dunno if you read about this one ( Infobeat offers a free news and entertainment e-mail service and they don't seem to like her a lot either) but it seems our pal (choke) Rosie wasn't pleased with her appearance on Celebrity Jeopardy...
"Speaking of stinks, Rosie O'Donnell is claiming her appearance on last month's "Celebrity Jeopardy!" wasn't fair. First, the questions were too hard; and second, they didn't have her favorite topic: Broadway Musicals. And she also says the producers cut her buzzer off so the other contestants could buzz in. No word on how she did, but sounds like a case of sour grapes to us. (Examiner) "
Is it just me, or does it sound like Princess Porcine is having a hissy fit whenever things just don't go her way ? The way I look at it, she's a single woman who got to adopt a couple of infants just because she's supposedly a star. Try to adopt a baby as an everyday single woman, and see how far the system works for you. It doesn't. Count your blessings, Rosie, or you won't have them (or an audience) for very long. God, I get so tired of celebrities being mistaken for people who actually have something of value to say ! She's a has-been comedy hack who likes the taste of power that she somehow has over her rather simple-minded audience. You wanna make changes, Rosie-baby, put that mike down on yer "This Ad Space For Rent" desk of yours, pry yer ass outta those cushy Broadway seats and bust yer ass out on the pavement with the rest of the loonies out in front of the White House. I understand the current inhabitant has a thing for zaftig women...
God save us all from spoiled celebrities... and thanks again for your site.
Mrs. Dorrie J.
P.S. - I hate that Pepsi brat so much, I switched to generic sodas. If a restaurant doesn't sell your particular soda, aping a bad gangster voice doesn't obligate anybody to get it for you. Leave or be thirsty, bratling. I'd have to submit the kid to psychological testing and probable drug therapy if a lousy soda choice causes her to erupt into multiple personalities. What a ridiculous ad. Only good thing is I haven't seen the deranged darling on T-shirts. Although a doll would make good crossbow target practice...
PSS - You didn't miss much on "The Story of Us". Eric Clapton publicly apologized for his music being a part of that film. Ouch. Hollywierd must be fulla meatheads these days.
Risky Business Dave,
I enjoyed your good motorcycle page.
The first job I had out of college was doing research for This Hour Has Seven Days, the Canadian news program on which things like the US 60 Minutes and such are modeled. (Morley Safer of Sixty Minutes is Canadian, and was one of our staff correspondents. He did wonderful things. Like a documentary on China during some of the worst of the Maoist shit. He just loaded up a crew and a ton of film and took the train up to the border from the New Territories in Hong Kong. They asked where his papers were, and he said "I'm just here to do the documentary." So they asked him where his papers were, and he said "I don't know anything about any papers, but surely they must have told you that I'm here to do the documentary." They let him through, and he ran that shtick all over the country...)
So anyway at one point I lived in this police headquarters for about a week on Highway 401, which at that time was the huge Toronto bypass, a humungous 8 lanes in places. Today it is an artery through roughly the middle of Toronto, and "the basketweave" is something like 38 lanes in places. We were trying to make "The Biography of A Highway." It's still a great idea for a show, but I don't know that anybody has ever done it well; we couldn't pull it off. The expense would be incredible, and you would basically have to be more skilled at patrolling than the cops are, and that generally ain't gonna happen.
So anyway I'm getting to know these cycle cops, and one of them tells me the ugly story. Turns out he's investigated something like eight biker deaths in the last year. In every case, without exception, the motorist was at fault. In the most charitable interpretation of a case motorists "didn't see" the biker. More often, he thought, people's brains turned on a little "kill the biker" switch. Cop deaths on bikes, he pointed out, were zero, despite long annual hours on the road. Why? Because drivers can see a cop a million yards away, was his theory.
A few years later I put this story to a friend in the Japanese Ministry of Justice, and he said Yes, in Japan motorcyclists were welcome, or even encouraged, to wear cyclewear that made them look like cops, sky blue coveralls with brilliant day-glo diagonal sashes. They figured it added to the apparent number of cops keeping traffic under discipline, and also reduced the number of bikers killed by drivers who subliminally thought them fair game.
Cheers,
-dlj.
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