Friday, February 22, 2013

Perks, Pay Cuts and Pelosi


Nancy Pelosi is a horse’s ass and example No. 2,627,188 of why the rich should be individually flogged at least twice a month.

Here we are, the general public, the great unwashed, the scratching post for those One-Percenters who believe with every fiber of their beings that having 281 billion dollars is preferable to having 280 billion and would happily squash some Mom and Pop store to add on that extra billion, and we’re about to become poorer.

Yeah, I know, stop the presses, the poor are getting dumped on again – please pinch me so I can awaken from this mind-numbing, once-in-a-lifetime event.

But you know what campers, this time we’re not sliding down Excrement Alley solo.

This time we’re going to have company.

Yep, if sequestration rears its ugly head in our general direction, and we seem to be flying toward it faster than Daddy Warbucks can recite the account number of his Swiss bank account, we’re all going to feel the pinch – even, and wait for it, we may never see this phrase again in our lifetimes - the rich are going to suffer, too.

Keep in mind, we’re talking about people who tip bellhops the amount of cash most of us would nail our tongues to the table for, but yes, some of their incomes will be negatively altered.

This brings us back to Ms. Pelosi.

But first, a brief Mouseketeer Roll Call.

Pelosi is the House Minority Leader, who, like most government officials couldn’t spell “Poor” if you spotted her the “P” and the “O.” Good ol’ helpful ,down-to-earth, just-plain-folk Nance got wind of this sequester thing and was aghast, at least as aghast as a rich government official with a real estate mogul for a husband can get.

Nance thinks this idea of trimming her $174,000 a year Congressional salary, along with the $174,000 salaries of all her fellow members of Congress, is just downright insulting.

“I don’t think we should do it,” Nance said while contemplating which house servant she might have to let go. “I think we should respect the work we do. I think it’s necessary for us to have the dignity of the job that we have rewarded.”

Now, I don’t know what a lot of that means, but it sounds to me as if Nance actually believes that on the human Respect-O-Meter, she and her Congressional cronies are head-and-shoulders above the folks she purports to represent. They are better than us.

In other words, we should agree that we couldn’t survive without their wisdom and leadership and we should be genuflecting with our noses in the general vicinity of their southern-most orifice.

How dare her hallowed position be insulted by the thought of lowering the numbers on her paycheck.

Now, forget for a minute that $174,000 is four or five times more than the average American makes in a year, and let’s just focus on what perks Congressional members are entitled to just because they’re Congressional members.

Let’s start with the most comprehensive healthcare program imaginable, 75 percent of which is paid by us scratching posts. Their government pension? It’s better than any pension you can find on the planet, and we pay 80 percent of that.

Life insurance? It’s so good you probably get paid if you and your family stay in perfect health - and we foot the bill for one third of that.

Oh yeah, they get to travel anywhere and everywhere in the world when they so desire – and they do so free of charge (of course it’s not free for us post-scratchin’ taxpayers).

Cost of living raises, you know those things that haven’t existed for the working man since Hope and Crosby were making road pictures, members of Congress get ‘em religiously, every first of the year. And none of this graft even includes the sporadic windfalls from lobbyists and special interest groups with which they line their collective pockets on a regular basis.

Essentially, hundreds of millions of dollars go into the federal budget every year just to pay for congressional perks – all for a collection of dickheads who can’t agree on what year of merlot to sip with lunch, let alone anything that might make life better for the working American.

Their behavior follows the Rich Person Playbook to the letter – get rich and make sure no one else gets richer but you.

Our Gal Nance is at the head of the line when it comes to Rich Person etiquette. She’d just as soon vote herself a pay raise as do something productive for us minions.

And by her figurin’  we should be grateful she’s alive and looking out for our best interests.

How dare she have to take a pay cut.

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, February 15, 2013

Making the Grade - Retroactively


In a society where money is placed above all else, considered even more vital than getting laid, you just knew this was a foregone inevitability.

And it’s about time.

Some angel named Megan Thode, a University of Pennsylvania graduate student, is suing Lehigh University and a professor of that same institution, for a grade she believes was unfairly given to her, a grade she says prevented her from becoming a licensed therapist, with its accompanying mega-salary.

Thode claims that grade, a C-plus, prevented her from filling the educational requirement necessary to advance to the next academic stage toward becoming a therapist.

Thode, or should we just call her Sue, says this unfair grade has cost her $1.3 million, and she wants some satisfaction.

Now, as you would expect, Sue is claiming all sorts of prejudice was heaped upon her by the prof, saying she was penalized for speaking out in favor of same-sex marriage, among other things.

The prof, meanwhile, stands by the grade, borne out of a score of “zero” she gave Sue for class participation. Prof said Sue often acted like a complete ass, shouting out repeatedly in class and even breaking out in tears on occasion.

Should Sue win her suit, and in a land where true justice is handed out as often as teenagers clean their rooms, she’s got a good shot, I’ll skip the Viagra that day. In fact, I’ll be that very conspicuous old white guy pogo-ing down the street, sans pogo stick.

Just think of it, retroactively I can gather so much moolah I can have Warren Buffet licking my Sketchers, after he chauffeurs me around town on my late-night champagne and hooker runs.

Let’s see, that “C” I got in Fiction Writing back in college, that was a complete travesty. I did all the required work. True, I didn’t read a single textbook before taking the final, but what difference does that make? I was made a victim by that professor, who had it in for me because I chose to play pinball at the local “Hoagie Heaven”  instead of attending his class.

You talk about being wronged, my case makes Rosa Parks look like a spoiled buttinski. Because I was denied the “A” I so richly deserved in that class, I was denied that interview at the “New York Times.” That, undoubtedly, contributed to my not being considered for that opening at “Newsweek” that prevented me from fulfilling my lifelong goal of covering those African tribes for “National Geographic.”

Hey, if I had been treated fairly, I could, as we speak, be checking out all the naked breasts imaginable, and make Scrooge McDuck’s bank account look like the savings of a schmuck working the midnight shift at Pizza Hut. If it wasn’t for that lackey pretender of a college professor, I could have been a contender – in Africa, up to my Nikon in uncovered female flesh.

I’ll bet that unfeeling scum is sipping his retirement margaritas somewhere, still chuckling at the misery he has put me through.

I want some retroactive justice. No, I demand it.

Of course, all of these delicious dreams mean nothing if the judicial system drops the ball and denies Sue her just desserts.

All I need is some typical American justice, and I’ll be playing the real-life version of “Monopoly,” complete with monocle, as I should be.

Finally, after all these years of being the sucker that was taught being a good, well-behaved citizen and working hard (well, most of the time) resulted in a comfortable and blissful life, I can join the ever growing list of half-speed, ne’er-do-wells who’ve made their fortune the American way – by suing somebody’s ass.

Megan Thode, you’re my freakin’ hero.

You go, girl.

 

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Behind the Big Japanese Cover-Up


If you want a good laugh these days it’s not necessary to watch “Comedy Central,” “FOX News” or even an interview with Ted Nugent.

All you need do is spend about 10 minutes on an internet news site.

Because it’s necessary to continually grab the viewer’s attention, and the average Y Generation slug – their target audience - has the attention span of a Bounty paper towel, these sites, whether they be AOL or MSN or Bing or Bong or whatever brain candy that passes for a news service in this day and age, find it necessary to change what they deem news about every 15 minutes.

Considering the dubious source, every once in a great while, believe it or not, there appears a link worth clicking on, for subjects like devastating volcanoes, new national legislation being pondered or the daily massacre by a firearm.

But the vast majority of the crapola that appears on these sites is just that, garbage that even a J.P. Mascaro truck would drive past. Things like the dating habits of reality-show skanks, the dating habits of royal skanks and the dating habits of any skanks deemed famous come immediately to mind. There are piles of cow dung in the middle of a 700-acre spread in Wyoming that are more worthy of interest than the latest celebrity “baby bump” and who’s boffing who and what the Kardashian family has to say about it.

Admittedly, it’s rare, but every so often you come across a nugget that makes the whole process worthwhile, one of those under the radar items that are not only entertaining, but funnier than a Republican Party primary debate.

For example, and even a jaded old coot like me wind up pissing my pants over this stuff, there is some patron of the arts who decided to spring for a replica statue of Michelangelo’s famous “David” statue and place it in a park in the burg of Okuizumo, Japan.

Now, for those of you who actually consider the reality-show skanks newsworthy, here’s a small history lesson – “David” is one of the world’s great pieces of art, and I mean actual art, not to be confused with the latest Quentin Tarantino movie. The problem, apparently, in the eyes of the folks in ol’ Okuizumo is that “David” is a sculpture of a naked man with his penis clearly and largely exposed.

 Now, to the shock of absolutely no one, the 15,000 residents of this tea leaf of a town are requesting, nay, demanding that Davey find himself some underwear – and quickly.

Yepper, the folks of Japan, who once insisted Godzilla be given an honorary Oscar and who happen to wake up in one of the world’s infamous hubs of trashy porn so hardcore it would make Jenna Jameson lose her luscious cookies, are insisting on finding a large pair of Fruit of the Looms to cover up one of the world’s great artistic treasures.

I’m telling you, boys and girls, you can fry your brain for hours and not make stuff like this up.

Here you are, blessed with the rare opportunity to see, albeit a replica of, one of the great works of art ever created, and your first inclination, the first chestnut of a thought in your mind, is to cover it up.

I guess these jugheads’ first reaction to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon would be to trim them, then to shear off the tops of the Pyramids for exceeding the town’s height ordinance, but not before  insisting on crocheting a suitable shawl to cover up the Mona Lisa’s cleavage.

It’s art, folks, not an artifact from the adult film classic, “Field of Wet Dreams.”

The reason given by these pillars of the community for dumping on a great piece of sculpture is that the subject of the statue has his genitalia exposed, and not only is that against the law in Japan, this heinous act is going to corrupt little Takahiro and Natsuki and all the other young ‘uns of Okuizumo.

Now, this is something that’s always baffled me about self-proclaimed, puritanical do-gooders, no matter what neck of the woods they insist on saving. I actually can understand being averse to the naked human form, if said form or forms are entwined in an act of passion. They may result in questions from five-year olds, who may not be mature enough to understand the answers.

But the solitary human form?

How, may I ask, can the same parts of the human anatomy that these precious little tykes see attached to themselves as they strip off their jammies every morning be considered unwatchable?

If they are, then does that mean that their own bodies are “dirty,” and not to be looked at?

And you wonder why there’s a skirt-grabbing pervert on every street corner?

Meanwhile, back in Okuizumo, there’s a mad search underway for oversized undergarments.

I wonder if anyone has thought of rummaging through Godzilla’s cedar chest.