February is a great month for birthdays... mine included.
Enjoy some Alice Cooper, Bob Marley -- and don't forget Lincoln and Washington, too.

Aren't today's kids screwed up enough?

Let's face it.  They are subjected to most banal, sterile and oppressive upbringing and now this manwhale from Massachusetts is going to ramrod his words down their throats.  Give it a rest, Ted.

Politicians from BOTH sides of the aisle should not expose themselves to citizens under the age of 18.  Take that anyway you want to read it.  Pols are vicious, vindictive vermin and that is speaking nicely of them. 

TK is writing a book entitled "My Senator and Me: A Dogs-Eye View of Washington, D.C."   It is the story of American Government as told using his Portugeuse Water Dog as a storyline aid.  In real life TK's dog's name is Splash.   The name of this poor canine was inspired by the sound of TK's car hitting the waters off Chappiquidick so many years before.

This is a perfect example of my Positional Profitability theory.  By one's position in life, that is, those who are already "positioned" as successful celebrities, it is assumed that using that position will bolster the profitability of almost any other endeavor.  Schmucks like you and me, much lower on the celebral food chain, would have to sell our kidney to get a children's book published.  TK just saunters into a publishing contract because of his stellar record as a highly-paid elected official with American Royalty status.

It happens everywhere, all the time.  Movie stars write novels.  Novelists appear in the movies.  Rock stars become painters.  Pop artists become rock stars.  It all started with Audie Murphy .  At least his accomplishments proved valuable to the success of a little conflict called World War Two.  The man was the genuine article: a battlefield hero with a heart of gold.  When he came back from Europe there was not much opportunity for a man with machine-gun toting skills (the market was saturated with such expertise in 1946) but his celebrity status got him into the movies.  He did well enough to go on to be a silver screen cowboy for many years.

And, in an amazing role reversal, Ronald Reagan went from movie actor to the White House with a stop at the gubernatorial mansion in Sacremento.  Yikes!  The Terminator, Arnold Schwartzenegger has done it, too!

Once you top the ladder, stepping on all the little guys on the way up, you discover that in the rarified air of celebritization you get to shift from one venue to the next fairly easily.  You can become a best-selling writer by being elected (and re-elected and re-elected) by a bunch of Irish Catholic Massachusett boilermaker drinkers.   The public's memory is short.  They forget so much, so fast.

Oh, well.  My children's book about corrupt politicians probably wouldn't sell anyway.

Today's YAHOO news headlines noted that cheerleading accidents have nearly doubled in the past few years.  The routines, more dangerous than ever, require more "body skills."  In an effort to be more competitive and draw attention to their talent, cheerleaders are pushing the envelope.

Well, I believe this is true in damn near every profession.

The world is becoming so damn competitive that everyone is attempting more difficult and more dangerous ways to get ahead in a career.  It does not matter if you drive a desk or a dump truck, the need to be better, faster, bigger is ever prevalent in most socieities.  With this escalation of extremes, accidents happen.  People are hurt.  People get killed.

There was a time when the workplace was a serene place -- well, for many of us.  Even on the factory floor, the pace and rhythm was manageable and sane.  Now, it seems, that if we cannot work with the frenzied accelleration of copulating monkeys you are on a watchlist for future termination.

Computers, once heralded as the great employee emancipator, were to make our lives easier.  They were going to give us much more leisure time.  I can distinctly remember reading an elementary school newsletter (My Weekly Reader) that clearly proclaimed that we would be working a 32 hour work week by the 1990s.  To borrow a line from that great movie, A MIGHTY WIND, 'Wha' Happened?'

Simply put, it was incumbent for corporate comglomerates to push the threshold -- instead of reducing the stress and toil they reduced the overall workforce.  Minimize the cost of labor by making a smaller pool of workers do more with the added efficiency of computers.

Nice.

So, the survivors -- those of us with full time jobs -- are working twice the hours putting out four times the production for half the wages/benefits.  And we attempt cartwheels, pirouettes and flaming batontwirling to demonstrate our importance, enthusiasm and dedication to the system.

Not nice.

There was a time when you put in your years and the young guys looked out for the older chaps.  You protected the senior members of your team because it was the right thing to do.  Someday you would be in that role.  You knew how the game was played.  You knew the rules.  And with some love and luck -- by choice or chance or circumstance you went the distance, got the watch and the pension.  Your last few years on the job were buffered a bit by your co-workers.

Not today.

Today you could be eaten by the little guy in the next cubicle while the folks from accounting watch with no emotion.  You can be torched where you work by a disgruntled employee and no one even stops to notice.  You can be downsized, rightsized, outsourced and disappear in one afternoon.

Wha' happened?   When did the man mold us into lab rats trained to  eat our young to keep our job?  When did the workplace become a breeding ground for cannibalism?

I guess it has been that way all along.  My father called it the Rat Race in the 1950s.  At least it was a race then.  Today it is more of a feeding frenzy between great whites...

Maybe it would be easier to be a cheerleader.

Well, after reflection and analysis of the events of 2005, it was a shitty year.

I was going to provide a list of, what seemed endless, disasters, wars, crimes and corruption.  Hell, we all know it was a difficult, trying twelve months for all of us.

But, instead of my usual dark rants, I would like to leave each of you with one simple request.  What one thing can you do in 2006 to make just one stranger's life a bit easier?  One thing above and beyond what you did in 2005.  It can be a monetary donation to a good-deed organization, volunteering for just one day at a clinic, signing up to be a big brother or sister... whatever.

I am going to ponder this over this holiday weekend.  And then I am going to dedicate myself to doing just one thing each month for a stranger.  I will keep it simple so I will get it done.  I will contemplate how my sacrifice (either time or money or both) made a difference.  I will repeat this action 11 more times throughout 2006.

I will encourage my friends and family to do the same. 

There are haves and have-nots.  There are the healthy and the ill.  There are the educated and the illiterate.  There are the happy and the sad.

Find just one little thing to do.

Please.