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Huffington Post has a terrible habit of writing misleading headlines.  When they wrote “Miley Cyrus Wears See Through Skirt” you better believe I clicked through to look, but it was only see through below the knees.  When they write Sports/Music/Film Legend Dies, I always click through to see just how much the world has been lessened, and the answer is generally “not much.”  No disrespect intended but, as often as not, it’s somebody I’d never heard of.

Still, as misleading as Huffpo is, that’s how gullible I am, so it’s somewhat of a symbiosis.  When I saw the headline today, “Commander and Chief,” over a big grinning picture of the Big O, I suspected some story about a recent political or diplomatic victory.  I was not too flabbergasted by them saying Commander and Chief instead of commander in chief.  They’re not always perfect spellers, either, but that’s not what ticked me off.

When I clicked through to read the article, it was more about that anti-Obama book that’s out now, and selling quite well, I hear.

Particularly the part about Obama smoking pot when he was a young man.  Now, first of all, shame on Huffpo for making this a headline story.  It’s a story, sure, if you’re going to be devoting a whole slideshow to Miley Cyrus’ very normal wardrobe, then I guess that Barry smoking the  good herb is a story.  But not a headline story.  First, it’s old news, because he already wrote about it in his own book.  Secondly, it was never really a scandal in the first place.  Lots of people have smoked pot.

So, I wrote in and called bullshit on the headline switcheroo, and somebody answered my complaint by saying “Didn’t you get it?  Chief is slang for marijuana.”

Well, I’ve been smoking reefer for about 4 decades now.  I’ve called it pot, reefer, herb, dope, wacky backy, ganja, grass, sensie (not sure of the spelling on that one, short for sinsemilla), pako andlolo, skunk, chronic and plain old smoke.  But I don’t recall ever calling it chief.

Cannibear

I suspect some headline writer was looking for a cheap pun, went to Urban Dictionary, found a couple of pages worth of words that somebody, somewhere once said were slang for marijuana, and chose the one that could be a presidential pun.

Or maybe they were just wasted.  Nothing wrong with that.

It’s been a week like most other weeks, some bad classes, some good classes.  A couple of cancellations and one class at a school where I teach a group of 8th  graders for one hour a week and Wednesday was a makeup class because last week they were in England, which sort of puts my one hour a week English lessons to shame, and not a single student showed up.

(this is not my son’s class. It’s just a random photo from a Czech Nature School that I found on Google images)

The kids at the elementary school where I teach most of the time are getting restless, they know the end of the school year is approaching, this month about 1/3rd of the students at any given time have been at “Nature School,” or, to be more literal with the translation, “School in Nature,” the days are hot, today there was Italian music coming up from a little wine, sausage and cheese fair they were having in the park opposite (they have farmers markets there all the time and its not unusual for some kind of  music to disrupt the class), and there was a general disinclination on the part of my students to study, which is also not unusual.

Add to that the fact that, since so many students are at Nature School (which is a really brilliant thing, by the way.  The students go off to camp with their teachers for a week, they have a few classes, take a few side trips, but mostly just fart around with their friends.  The kids love it and the parents get a mini-vacation.), some of my classes were scrunched together.  My first class in the morning I had 5th, 6th and 7th graders all together.

As the kids are disinclined to work hard, so am I.  I broke out the dice and the flashcards, started a quick game, and let it go.   I still shouted at them a bit, I’m afraid, but it could have been much worse.

Jim Conte, a Long Island Iced Tea Bagger, is a member of the New York State Assembly.  (note to Europeans and other non-Americans reading this – the number of Americans holding elective political office is staggering.  In addition to all of the blithering idiots in Washington, every one of the 50 states has it’s own little mini-circus going on, and then there are town councils, zoning commissions, school boards and crap like that.  So, the odds are approaching inevitable that, in any given week, one of them somewhere will do or say something incredibly stupid, just because of the numbers.   It’s also true that a significant number of Americans are dumber than hammers,  but that’s not the only reason our politics suck).

James Conte

Jim Conte thinks bullying is a terrible thing, and I agree with him up to that point.

But  Jim Conte thinks the solution to the problem is to make everybody sign their internet posts with their real name, and of course provide their real address, IP number and phone number to their provider.

Not only is it blatantly unconstitutional, it’s also seriously unworkable and contrary to the basic personality of the internet which the government didn’t invent.  Well, I guess, actually, they did, but we’re beyond that point now.  The internet is used all around the world, in more languages than most people even knew existed.  Sure, countries like China and Iran ban a lot of sites, but the internet moves on, finding ways around that.

It’s all about anonymity and being able to say whatever you want, even some pretty offensive stuff.

Anyway, I don’t see anybody being helped by this proposed law, except for those people who don’t mind putting their real names up with their posts.  Pillars of the community such as Hugh G.  Rection, Heywood Giablomi, Ben and Eileen Dover, Rae Jean Cox, E. Tobago Dix, Anita Biggun, Harry Balz, Peter Burns, Mike Hawk, Mike Hunt, Amanda Hugandkiss, long time partners Ben Doon and Phil McCracken and our old friends from grade school Seymour Butts,  I.P. Freely and A.B. Normal.

Reality challenged Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who has been raising a terrible stink the past couple of weeks over the old “Obama’s Birth Certificate” thing and saying he wanted to keep Obama off the ballot in November, which would be humorous except for that part about him being  Secretary of State for Arizona, which means he maybe could have done it.

If Ken Bennett is offended that I think he’s a lying little pander-monkey, I apologize

Anyway, he has apparently been convinced that he was barking up the wrong tree (If Donald Trump and Dentist/Lawyer/Real Estate agent Orly Taitz combined couldn’t come up with the goods, what chance did Mr. Bennett have?)

So, he’s issued the standard Republican apology (yeah, both sides do it, but in case anybody is keeping score, the Republicans lead in this category by about 1,000 to 1).

“If I embarrassed the state, I apologize, but that certainly wasn’t my intent,” he said.

Actually, Mr. Bennett, nobody’s asking you to apologize for embarrassing the State of Arizona.  You’re from the same state as Jan Brewer, Sheriff Joe R. Piehole and Meghan McCain.  Seriously, how much more embarrassed could Arizona be?

You should apologize for wasting everybody’s time on an issue that is more proven than global warming, even.  Obama’s bona fide Americanness has been proved as much as evolution or the more or less roundness of the earth.  It is not a matter of opinion.  It is settled fact.  You should apologize for being a bloody idiot.

But my real problem with this is the wording of the apology.  “If I embarrassed the State…”  Apologies that begin with “if” don’t count.

It’s like  Romney’s statement in regard to the John Lauber haircut incident.  “If anybody was offended by any  of my funny little pranks in High School, well, here, have an apology, on me” har har har.

It’s just not good enough.

Well, it’s getting late and I’d better get something written and get to bed, but it’s a depressing news day, and I’m not really in a negative mood.

Zombie Ronald Reagan

There was the story about the guy  who is selling a vial of Ronald Reagan’s blood, because he believes that that’s what Ronald Reagan would approve of if he were alive and he’s a big fan of Reaganomics.  I guess karma still keeps going even after you’re dead.

That’s kind of morbid.  I was no fan of Ronald Reagan’s, but leave the man’s bodily fluids alone.  It’s not like anybody’s planning on cloning him, or….oh, fuck.

Then there’s the Franciscan Academy scandal, apparently there are thousands and thousands of pages of documentation, I really  can’t imagine what that means.  They kept sex diaries?  There were love letters?

Sorry to be so vague, I failed to note the specific name in the story and when I googled “Franciscan Academy Scandal” I just got pages and pages of stuff.  Surprise, huh?

Anyway, the line that struck me was that there was proof that this went back “decades.”  Well, I see no reason to think there was a sudden trigger “decades” ago to start the ball rolling.  If there’s one thing that history teaches us, it’s that people have always fundamentally been people.  And a certain percentage of them have always been gay men.  And the Catholic Church has always been a logical avenue of employment for those gay men, because nobody would be asking those annoying questions about when are you going to get married and have a baby.

I’m not saying the Catholic Church is evil, there are hundreds of millions of Catholics around the world, and most of them are fine people.  But, when you demand that your priests be celibate, what did you expect?

Television irritant and serial marrier of smoking hot Slavic women Donald Trump has decided to join insanely hypocritical billionaire and Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts for a ride on the crazy train.  They are suggesting that Mitt Romney take off the gloves and come out swinging.  The hard hitting ad campaign that they propose is, believe it or not, the Reverend Wright stuff.

Donald Trump with current wife Melania

There are a couple of reasons why this would not be a good idea for the Republicans, and I give them this free campaign advice in the absolute certainty that they will not heed it.

First, I think everybody in America has heard plenty about the Reverend Wright.  The “God Damn America” clip, which you know perfectly well is all they’ve got, is the most overplayed piece of audio since “The Macarena.”  Maybe since “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”  Do Republicans seriously think that a few million more repetitions is going to change anybody’s mind?

Of course, they’ve got the spondoolicks to absolutely run that ad into the ground, but I think at some point it will become counterproductive.  Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, and whatever that wrestling lady’s name is have proved that just spending a massive amount is not necessarily enough.  The candidate’s got to have something more, even a little bit more, and Romney doesn’t.

But mostly I think it’s a bad idea because it opens a door the Republicans really don’t want to go through.  If they bring up Reverend Wright, we start raising questions about Mormonism.  Who did Mitt baptize, post mortem?  Was he for or against allowing blacks into the priesthood?  Does he really think he’s going to get a planet to rule over as a god in the afterlife?

Actually, things might get interesting.  Bring it on, guys!

One of the major disadvantages to watching films on TV is that as you are flipping through the dial, you seldom find one right as its beginning.  A Woody Allen like insistence on seeing a film from the very opening shot is just not workable, unless you feel like thinking in advance, looking at schedules, and recording stuff, which I suppose is all easy enough, but not as easy as changing the channels, so I wind up seeing a lot of movies from 15 minutes in.

Behind every great man there’s a great woman who dumped his sorry ass

So, I felt very lucky today to happen to see The Social Network right from the beginning.  Then I thought, hey wait a minute, this film is only about 2 years old.  If it’s on TV already, that must be because it sucked.  Or, maybe that’s just the turnaround time now, but that’s what I thought.

I liked the film a lot.  I found all the principal characters believable and, surprisingly, likable.  Sure, Mark Zuckerberg was (probably still is)  an arrogant prick but, in the words of the late, great Dizzy Dean, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it.”  The Winklevoss twins were (probably still are) spoiled rich kids, but I’m glad they got their $65 million dollar buyout, because Zuckerberg did kind of steal their idea and run with it.  Of course, it wasn’t specified at the time how much Eduardo Saverin got.  He was the one I felt sorry for in the film, went into business with a college buddy and got screwed because he was in way over his head.

However, since he has just renounced his American citizenship and taken up residence in Singapore in order to save up to  $100 million in taxes, I’m guessing he got a decent payout.

Another thing I enjoyed about the movie was the way people were smoking pot and knocking back shots everywhere you went, and the very basic, central fact of the movie, that facebook started almost as a college prank by a bunch of geeks who just wanted to get laid.  It gives me hope for the future of the world.

In other facebook news, Mr. Z (28)  got married to Priscilla Chan (27) the other day.  They’ve been together for 9 years, so her character was apparently left out of the movie.  I wish them all the happiness in the world.