In my salad days, I played a bunch of beauty paegants. As a pit orchestra drummer, you get a unique perspective on pageants, much like you do when you get to see a magician’s act from behind the curtain. As an arranger/composer/orchestrator, my father got a good bit of pageant work, too. He did arrangements for some high-profile contestants, the biggest of which was Miss Louisiana, Anita Whittaker, who placed in the top five of the Miss America pageant. So when I talk about pageants, I’m not simply doing the armchair quarterback thing – I’ve been there and done that. [Read more…] about Beauty is their Bidness.
Media
Snow Job.
As I write this, it is about 68 degrees and overcast, here in Amarillo, Centrally Located Between Two Oceans!™ It’s been in the 70s and even up into the 80s over the past couple of weeks. Lows have been in the high 30s and 40s. I mention this because I’ve just learned that the brain trust at the Amarillo Independent School District have unilaterally decreed that school will be canceled for all of Amarillo tomorrow. This is due to the prediction by the National Weather Service of a blizzard (!) where they forecast between one and two feet of snow for us tomorrow.
Pause with me for a nanosecond, whilst I rage against the unfairness of weather here in the Panhandle. [Read more…] about Snow Job.
Beck: The 21st Century Paul Revere.
There’s something happening here. You can feel it in the air. You can see it on people’s faces, hear it in their voices. Change. And I don’t mean the kind of B.S. “Change” that we saw on Obama’s campaign posters. I mean the kind of change that changes the course of a nation. And the tipping point is this afternoon.
I’m a conservative. A proud conservative. And I believe this country is, frankly, going to Hell in a hand-basket. Sadly, this started long before Obama took office. While I believe that George Bush the Younger is a principled, Godly man, too many things that happened on his watch ran contrary to my conservative principles. That was bad. This is worse: since Obama took office, the country is on a toboggan ride, downhill towards Socialism. Spending like drunken sailors (no offense to our Navy, guys – it’s just an expression), Congress seems content to fiddle while the U.S.A. burns. No program is stupid enough, wacky enough, or costly enough to deny it funding, while even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office warns that most of the “stimulus” they’ve passed will not only fail to stimulate the economy, but will in fact prolong the recession. Obama has acknowledged as such, even back as far as the campaign days. When asked about his plan to tax capital gains even when it’s been proven, time and time again, that this will have a detrimental effect on the economy, he replied, “But it’s the right thing to do.”
The right thing to do. Interesting turn of phrase. [Read more…] about Beck: The 21st Century Paul Revere.
Newsbabes.
I’m lucky. I office out of my home, where I have a room set up as my office. I have a flat panel monitor hooked up to my satelite, and the audio routed through some near field audio monitors. It’s a sweet setup, and enables me to keep the news on in the background, all day long. If I get really deep into code, I can turn off the audio, but normally, it’s not a distraction. Even better, I get a screen pop for the home phone’s caller ID, so I can see who’s calling without having to hunt for one of the elusive and frequently AWOL portable phones. I usually keep the satellite tuned to Fox News, as I can keep up with the important news of the day. Since Dish Network FINALLY added Fox Business, I’ve recently begun switching between Fox News and Fox Business. And I’ve recently come to a couple realizations: [Read more…] about Newsbabes.
Random Thoughts.
I have a lot of things on my mind right now – things that don’t necessarily merrit a full blog post, but ideas I’d like to share, nonetheless. So consider this an idea sampler…
Obama IS the second coming of JFK, but not for the reasons the Dems would like to believe. I hear he’s signaled to Russia that he’s willing to put our missile sheild in Europe on the table, in exchange for their “help” with Iran. Um…so we’re going to surrender the one thing that has Putin foaming at the mouth, in exchange for some vague promise from Russia that they won’t continue to aid and abett those Iranian nut-jobs? Good plan. I hope O’s Universal Healthcare covers spinal transpants, ‘cuz it looks like he needs one…
Hey, Congress…The time to read legislation is BEFORE you vote on it. [Read more…] about Random Thoughts.
Handicapping the Oscars.
Do you love movies? I used to. Hooray for Hollywood and all that. It used to be our best export – American culture via movies was the original nation-building exercise. Even countries that hate us loved our entertainment. Today, things are different. I’m ashamed of most of the America-bashing, far-Left ideology-spewing, self-absorbed naval gazing, crapalicious dreck coming out of Hollywood nowadays. And I’m not alone. Movie attendance is way, way down in the so-called “Red States,” and the number-one with a car bomb objection raised by Islamic fundamentalist nutjobs is the “decadent” entertainment designed to break down traditional cultures – like theres. I used to enjoy watching the Oscar ceremony, pulling for my favorite movies, directors, actors and actresses. Not anymore. I haven’t watched – or cared about – the Oscars in years. Between Hollywood nominating a bunch of movies I wouldn’t see on a bet (movies that mock my values, like Brokeback Mountain) and nominating a bunch of actors and actresses with little talent, less common sense, willing to loudly bray their opinions about George Bush, the Right, and how everything wrong with the world is Halliburton’s and Chenney’s fault. After a while it gets old.
Then I realized that I had the perfect formula to predict who would win the Oscars. [Read more…] about Handicapping the Oscars.
The Decline and Fall of the American Family.
Right up front, lemme say that I’m on the side of those that treasure traditional values – family, religion, country…that sort of thing. I’m a huge believer in the sanctity of the family. In fact, I believe that the family answers to God first. I believe that the government is supposed to work for us – not us for them. And I believe that Parents are the ultimate authority (after God) over their kids – not the State.
Unfortunately for all of us, that is directly opposite from the philosophy of our new President and his administration.
Even worse, there’s been a group actively working on softening us all up, in preparation for the Obama administration’s big push towards Socialism. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…Hollywood. [Read more…] about The Decline and Fall of the American Family.
Sauce for the Goose.
For the last eight years, I’ve suffered along with the rest of my fellow Conservatives, having to put up with much of Hollywood, the mainstream press, cartoonists, and just about everybody on the left who had access to a microphone, make George Bush out to be some kind of drooling moron, one step above a “developmentally disabled” charity case. The left has righteously proclaimed that they are not biased, and had no axe to grind regarding Bush & Co., and that it was all in the twisted imagination of Conservatives, that they were out to “get” Bush. What excesses they DO cop to, they claim were “all in good fun,” and they point to the fact that they also skewered Clinton (admittedly an easy target) during his Presidency. (My personal fave was the crack about Hillary forbidding the installation of a walk-in humidor in the Clinton Presidential Library.) They also protest (too much, if you ask me) regarding their treatment of Obama, claiming that they have not turned a blind eye to him, his past, and his mistakes, and asserting that they are not so enthralled with The Chosen One, that they refuse to be as critical of him as they have been of W.
Time to show yer cards, boys. [Read more…] about Sauce for the Goose.
Got MLK?
Today our country celebrates/commemorates/observes the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Coincidentally, it’s the last day of the Bush Administration, and the Eve of the ObamaNation. (Ahem.) The Chosen One has been busy in the last two weeks, with his faithful media lapdogs casting him as a combination of the second comings of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus Christ. Pretty big boots to step into, if you ask me, but the media assures us that he’s up to the task. We’ve been treated to breathless stories of how Obama has but four years to “fix” global warming or we’re all doomed, and how the Messiah is going to undo eight years of the “evils” of the Republicans.
I find it interesting that everything Obama has done so far, has been of a symbolic nature. [Read more…] about Got MLK?
Read All About It.
I hear that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, like many other once-proud newspapers, is up for sale. Even worse, if it’s not sold inside of 60 days, it will cease to exist in print (but might continue in a greatly scaled-back online form).
Sad. Very sad.
I was thinking the other day about how the newspaper biz has changed since I was a kid, throwing a paper route in Shreveport, Louisiana. It’s changed a lot – and not for the better. Of course, you could argue, and many do, that the Internet killed the Newspaper, just like it’s kill(ing) CDs and will soon kill DVDs. But if you’ve ever tried to get all your information from the web, you’ve probably seen that there’s something that you lose, when you ditch paper. So, I’m not convinced the problem with newspapers lies at the feet of the World Wide Web alone. No, I think it’s something(s) much deeper, and will, in fact, cause the destruction of an entire industry in no less significant a way than what happened to the dinosaurs. [Read more…] about Read All About It.