New Title...same blunt delivery!

Dear inconsistent reader,

You may (or probably not) have noticed that I have changed the title of this blog.  While I’m proud of what I accomplished with the Monkeyhouse, it has come to my attention that I have a rare quality of being able to bypass the “I shouldn’t say that…” filter within my brain.  I have been told that it is one of best and worst traits that I have, but I’ve chosen to embrace it, while understanding that my mouth has a habit of writing checks that my ass can’t cash.  It is a careful balance in the pursuit to avoid ass-kickings.

I suppose that it is also a new service that I can offer.  Could I make a business out of this?  Hmm...[insert dream sequence here]

Have some news you’d rather not give yourself?  Need to tell a coworker that they smell?  Need someone so state the unspoken obvious?  Then go to Friend Without Tact.  He’ll walk into a situation and say what everyone else is keeping to themselves!  Why?  Because he can’t help himself!

[shaking myself out of it]

Seriously, though, I think it speaks in a lot of ways to who I am, and what I’m constantly struggling with, hence the name change.  Thanks to Amy, Kyle and Sara for pointing it out and making the less-blunt suggestion!  :)

Celebrities and privacy

I was reading my newsfeeds this morning, and came across a headline that bugged me.  Now, these days A LOT of headlines bother me, but this one seemed to just smack of hypocrisy:

Private drama plagues Oscar winner Sandra Bullock (AP)

Now this headline just got me angry, because once the media got involved in this story, about rumors of Bullock's husband, Jesse James potential infidelities, it was no longer a private drama.  Instead it's splashed on the pages of every rag and tabloid from here to Taiwan(to be fair, the Taiwanese are more fans of Renee Zellweger...not sure why...).  I know that celebrities are out there for the world to see, and that they make their money by being seen and recognized, and admired for their talent and their glamour, but at some point, we just have to say enough is enough.

I am immeasurably tired of the Tiger Woods story.  Yeah, I get it, he was unfaithful...A LOT, but how does that affect my life?  Unless you know anyone directly involved(i.e. Woods, his wife, and the 15 whores Edit: women of questionable integrity that he was banging), you don't have any stake in this story.  If Tiger Woods was just some guy who played at the local country club, or, hell, the local garbage man for that matter, no one other than family and friends would give a crap what he did in/out of his marriage.  The only reason this became a big deal was the media attention that this story garnered.  I'm perfectly willing to admit that I sometimes get sucked up into the tabloid journalism...You know, EVERY story about Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and those wastes of oxygen from Jersey Shore, but from the very beginning, the Tiger story didn't really matter to me.  I see all these sponsors dropping him, and fans crucifying him for his extramarital activities.  While I don't condone his cheating, his actions don't affect my impression of him as a golfer...he's still going to go out at the Masters and show why he's one of the best Golfers to ever pick up a driver.

Ultimately, he's a celebrity, and I expect celebrities to do stupid, selfish, destructive things to themselves and the people around them.  I've seen way too many entitled celebs get themselves into so many different, ridiculous situations, that when I hear that Tiger had 15+ mistresses, I can hardly raise an eyebrow in surprise.

In closing, Hey Media...leave these poor people struggling with life to their own private lives.  It is hard enough to navigate the world without a dozen cameras in your face when you go to Nobu for dinner!  Let's try  to get back some of that common decency that we've lost, and leave these people to pick up the pieces of their lives!

When an Independent is truly an Independent

HOLY SHITBALLS!

Now that the smoke has cleared on the furor over Scott Brown's defeat of Martha Coakley, and Brown has reported to work, it appears that the collective groan from Democrats worldwide may have been a bit premature. 

Brown crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats on the jobs bill and fend off the Republicans that were falling over themselves to filibuster the bill into submission.  Said Brown,

"I came to Washington to be an independent voice, to put politics aside, and to do everything in my power to help create jobs for Massachusetts families. I wish the tax cuts were deeper and broader, but I will vote for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work,”

While I disagree with many of his other political positions, I have to say that his first major splash in Congress showed that he has the courage of his convictions, which I can definitely respect.

He finished by bringing some reason to the table: “Brown offered a final denunciation of the GOP before the vote: ‘My friends on the other side of the aisle are looking for ways not to vote for this," he said, accusing them of putting "partisanship ahead of people.’"

Wow...didn't think I'd be saying this, especially so soon, but way to go Scott Brown!

Forget mellow, I'm officially apathetic!

Two days ago, the future of the Obama Healthcare initiative took a huge hit when, in an upset, Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley and gave Ted Kennedy's senate seat back to the Republicans.  Listening to the pundits talk you'd think that this one election made Obama a lame duck a year into his 4-year term, and you know what?  I DON'T CARE!  I want to.  I want to be that guy who was passionate about the Dem's cause going into the last election...the guy who railed against McCain and Palin and the rampant conservative short bus that is Fox News.  I just can't do it anymore, because they may be right.

It's been a year with control of the White House, and both houses of Congress, and they've gotten NOTHING accomplished.  I've lost faith, I've lost patience, and I'm losing interest.  These people are being paid to REPRESENT us.  As far as I can tell they're all representing covering their asses, and little else.  The Dems are arguing among themselves as to the language of the healthcare plan, while Obama just continually begs them to send him a bill he can sign, and the Republicans(a group which now officially includes Joe Lieberman), are doing nothing but trying to gum up the works in order that the bill that gets produced has absolutely no teeth to it!

We're not doing much to recover from the laughing stock that we became during the last presidency.  We have no credibility among the other countries of the world, our debt to China is growing, nearly 20 percent of our workforce is unemployed or underemployed, the economy has not been stimulated, and no one seems to care to monitor those jackass banks and financial institutions that our tax money bailed out.

And all I care about is that I'm tired...or rather exhausted.  I can blame my infant daughter only so much, because it's not just lack of sleep.  I'm tired of my lackluster job, tired of my complete and total lack of ambition, tired of being so cranky when I get home that I snap at people(sorry Amy), and tired of not feeling that passion anymore for the things in the world that really bug me. 

I need a shockabuku...anyone want to help?

Have I mellowed?

It was only a short time ago that political news of any kind would get me in an uproar.  The likes of Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, or, heaven forbid, Ann Coulter opening their traps was enough to send me off the edge and I wouldn't come back until I'd gotten all of the vitriol out of my system.  Sometimes I would fume for days over some new policy or decision that the Bush administration made, and I would let the few paltry readers I had suffer more anger and outrage at this issue or that.

Then it happened...the seemingly interminable and outrageous presidency of Dubya was over and in a stunning election, Obama overcame the challenge from McCain and Caribou Barbie to become the 44th President and the first of African American descent.  It was a huge triumph for those who believed that Obama would be that change that we wanted to see in the world.

I have to say that I felt awash in political pride.  My candidate had beaten the odds and won.  There was a mandate for change, for the razing of the policies of the past eight years, for the end of politics as usual in Washington.  It's been nearly a year since Obama was inaugurated, and so far, I'm less than blown over by his first 11 or so months.

Universal Healthcare was finally just passed in the Senate, but former Democrat Joe Lieberman stomped around getting his way first with the elimination of the public option, and now seemingly getting the Medicare buy-in removed from the plan, two moves which, in essence, take all of the teeth out of the bite that the bill could take out of our healthcare woes in this country.  Also, the plan was to have no increase on middle class taxes.  It was one of the cornerstones of Obama's whole campaign.  I haven't seen how they plan to pay for this whopper of a healthcare bill, but frankly, I'm getting worried.

Instead of getting troops out of the Middle East, Obama just announced another surge of troops to Afghanistan in order to combat the growing insurgency.  While there are myriad differences between Iraq and Afghanistan's turmoil, it seems as if this is strikingly similar to the morass we faced which necessitated the surge in Iraq.  I firmly believe, in this case, that the troops are necessary in Afghanistan, because, let's be honest...that's where they were needed in the first place.

Our economy is still pretty much in the shitter. We're seeing signs of recovery, but it's still touch and go.  Of course, I don't even close to blame Obama for the state of the economy.  He was saddled with not only a fiscal disaster of a deficit, but also the aftermath of bail-out-apalooza.

I find myself hardpressed to decide where to rate Obama's first year.  As with every presidential candidate, Obama promised a lot of things to a lot of people.  While it's virtually impossible for him to get every one of those things accomplished, let alone in his first year, it seems that even the most rudimentary have fallen by the wayside.  I don't completely blame Obama, because it seems that the very tenets of our government, as well as the people we elect to "represent" us in Congress have done a wonderful job of tripping over themselves and allowing us to fall back into political infighting and turmoil, even within the Democratic party.

I'm starting to wonder if this whole democracy thing is going to turn out to be a failed 234 year old experiment. 

Seattle Confidential

When I read this story this weekend, it started to nag at me.  Why did this sound so familiar?  But then it hit me.  This is the beginning to the plot of L.A. Confidential.  Based on the book by James Ellroy, the movie told the story of the fallout after several LA police officers were gunned down execution-style in a local coffee shop.  Of course, in the movie, set in the 1950's, a group of young black men were framed for the murders, and then killed themselves by dirty cops to try to cover up a larger conspiracy, involving police corruption, drug dealing, and intimidation.

I know that this is not the case here, but it stood out so much in my mind when I read the story, that i felt the need to comment.  I feel for the families of the officers killed, and want to send condolences their way.  It is apparently also unclear whether the suspect, Maurice Clemmons, is still alive. He was apparently wounded in the attack, and has been holed up in a standoff with police at a house 30 miles from where he apparently opened fire and killed 4 police officers.  However this shakes out, whether Clemmons is still alive or not, the whole thing is just so senseless.  Life is short enough without crazed gunmen trying to make it any more truncated...

V For Very Republican

ABC has recently introduced America to V, a reimagining of an 80's British miniseries, in which an alien race called "The Visitors" descend on Earth and attempt to establish relations with Earth in order to make a mutually beneficial relationship.  The Visitors have much to offer in the way of technological and medical advances that we have not yet come up with.  But they want something in return, and they're dodgy and coy when it comes to finding out what it is.

**Potential Spoilers ahead**

As of now, I've only seen the pilot episode, but I like the cast, which includes Elizabeth Mitchell(Juliet from Lost), Morena Baccarin(Inara from Firefly), and Scott Wolf(from Party of Five fame).  In the pilot, they arrive and begin the establishment of diplomatic relations, while we also see an underground group that is trying hard as they can to fight against the Visitors' occupation of Earth airspace.  They maintain that there have been Visitors in sleeper cells on Earth for years, gathering information, and getting themselves entrenched in human life.  The Visitors obviously have some more dastardly agenda than they would let on.  We also see an attack on the underground resistance, in which we find out that the Visitors, while seemingly humanoid, actually are reptilian creatures under their human facade.  I'm looking forward to where this goes, and am intrigued in tracking down the original British miniseries to see how it compares.

I've been mulling over the idea of aliens covertly living among us since the days of Men In Black, but V simply reinforces the idea of aliens hiding in plain sight...does this offer some insight into Fox News?  The likes of Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity?  Even the corpulent fatty, Rush Limbaugh?  It would be brilliant...they take the focus off themselves by railing against illegal immigration...it's GENIUS! 

Now...which one to hack up with a machete to prove it...hmmm...eenie meenie mineee......