Part 4...the storm clouds gather.

Nothing prepares you for the moment of love at first sight, especially when you don’t think it exists. I barely heard a word she said as I was too busy trying to process a torrent of raw emotion. I had no clue what the hell was going on...only there was no one else in the world except her at that moment. I mumbled through some pleasantries and went back to my seat. Jesus, I thought, I need a drink. Badly.
I asked the club owner and bartender if anyone had seen her before. Nope. Great, no one who could introduce me. I’ll give you an idea of how affected I was...I asked her to dance. Now anyone who’s known me for more than 5 minutes knows there are a few things I just don’t do...and dancing is at the top of the list. It was the only way I knew to start a conversation with her. So we danced, and just before the end of the song I slipped her a note with my name and number. She took it without looking at it, but did ask me to sit down. I remember asking about the guy she came in with, but she said he was just a friend. (He was...one I never managed to get along with, but anyhow). We talked very briefly about nothing much as I had to go backstage and introduce the next act, but she mentioned she listened to my show in the afternoons. I told her I was glad I met her, went backstage, and had another drink. As I walked onstage I had the weirdest feeling...a hunch that I’d be here again...with her. Turns out I was right, but that comes later.
The next couple of days were hell. The only thing I wanted was for her to call me. Every time the phone rang I said a silent prayer it was her (and praying is another one of the things I don’t do). On top of all that I had to deal with these new feelings. I’d met people before, obviously. Why was this one so different? What the hell was going on? Was I going nuts?
Finally, it happened. I was in the middle of my airshift when she called on the request line.
Never had I been so happy to hear a voice. We talked for awhile and I threw caution to the wind and asked her out. We went to my favorite Chinese restaurant that night and from there hardly left each others sight. In fact, we moved in together 3 weeks later.
I had it ALL. Programming a radio station and the most beautiful girl in the world. I brought her home for Thanksgiving and was really surprised that no one seemed to feel the same way toward her as I did. My friends shared my family’s opinion. They were happy for me but didn’t care for her much. I blithely ignored these alarm bells and settled into one of the happiest periods in my life.
Her family, on the other hand, was a swirling morass of dysfunction. Mom was a narcissistic manipulator and Dad was rooted in a deep angry depression that made him a mean, bitter and sarcastic asshole after a fatal car accident in which he was driving killed his wife. Her brother was just a spoiled over-entitled idiot struggling with his then-latent homosexuality.
So what did I do? Yup, I allowed Dad and Brother to move in with us. Smart, huh? Even so, I was happy.
A couple paragraphs ago I wrote of the hunch I had that I’d be on that nightclub stage again, and she’d be with me. I was right. As we headed in to the 1990 holiday season I wanted to throw our station a first birthday party. It was quite a bash, with a couple live bands, catered food, cheap drinks and about 500 people. We carried the party live on air. A couple minutes before midnight I was onstage to lead the crowd in a New Years toast.
I often spoke on air about things in my life, including her. In fact I referred to her as "the cherry on my sundae". Most, if not all listeners had heard me mention this as I did it often.
So I grab the mic and ask if they’d like to meet the cherry on my sundae. The crowd, well lubricated by this time, roared yes. I asked her to come up with me and introduced her to a packed nightclub. As we stood onstage I told the crowd I had to do one more thing. I pulled a ring from my pocket and live on the air asked her to marry me. The applause was deafening but I didn’t hear it. She said yes. That started a roller coaster ride that was to end in disaster about 6 months later.

Cut the cheese, go to jail.

Recently I posted about police officers who have little if any respect for the people they supposedly protect. If I do 75mph on a highway I'm treated like I mugged the President, ticketed, and then made to sit through a preachy doublethinkful (read Orwell's 1984) roadside soliloquy about safe driving. Police, however can travel at any speed they like even when off duty or on routine patrol. Who's going to ticket them?
Contempt toward others and the feeling of superiority that comes with a badge is a toxic combination.
Allow me to tell you about 34 year old Jose Cruz. He was stopped for drunk driving and taken to the Kanawha County VA station to be processed. So far so good.
Mr. Cruz then farts and fans it toward officer T.E. Parsons as they sit in an interrogation room. Officer Parsons then decides he's a far more valuable member of society than everyone else and tacks onto Mr. Cruz another charge. What could it be, you ask?
Battery on a police officer. No, I'm not kidding. I wish I was. The mind boggles as to how self-important one armed idiot can be. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed as the Kanawha county prosecutor dropped the charge. I'll bet my next paycheck Officer Parsons faces no discipline for this incident. Mr. Cruz still faces DUI charges. I hope they convict the SOB...and he doesn't fart in court.

Some companies just don't get it.

A Reuters story today says Ebay may cut up to 1500 jobs. A whopping 10% of their employees. Why? A report by investment firm Wedge Partners says the business is "deteriorating". No shit. Anyone who's had trouble with the brain-dead morons at Paypal, had an auction pulled for no apparent reason with no recourse, tried in vain to get Ebay to answer a simple emailed question, had to deal with their "dispute resolution" (which is code for "give the buyer whatever he wants even if he lies like a rug and you the seller are screwed), or balked at ever-increasing fees knows what the problems are.
I just described them. They're slowly kiling the golden goose, and no one at Ebay has enough common sense to see it.

The Russians aren't alone in their delusions.

This comes from Al-Jazeera's English website. Any italics are mine.


'Many still have doubts' over 9/11
By Alex Sehmer

Many find it hard to accept the official version of what happened on 9/11
More than 50 per cent of people reject the official belief that the attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, were carried out by al-Qaeda, a new survey has revealed.
The findings, released late on Wednesday, suggest that the official version of events - that the attacks, which killed more than 2,900 people and sparked the US so-called "war on terror", were carried out by al-Qaeda - is still a long way from being generally accepted.
Only 46 per cent of respondents named al-Qaeda, while 25 per cent said they did not know and 15 per cent said the US government was behind the attacks.
Steven Kull, the director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, which carried out the survey, told Al Jazeera: "Broadly what this says is that there is a lack of confidence with the United States and so people mistrust the narrative the US puts forward."Officially, hijackers took control of four passenger aircraft in the September 11 attacks. Two of the aeroplanes crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York and the "Twin Towers" subsequently collapsed, bringing down two other buildings nearby. The third aircraft hit the Pentagon while the fourth is said to have crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Kull's organisation asked more than 16,000 people world wide "Who do you think was behind the 9/11 attacks?", leaving the question open-ended.
While a substantial number of those polled believed the US government was in some way behind the attacks, seven per cent point the finger at Israel.
The 2001 attacks prompted the so-called US 'war on terror'. Of the countries surveyed, Egypt and Jordan had the highest percentages of people who believed Israel was behind the attack, polling 43 and 31 per cent respectively. Nineteen per cent of those polled in the Palestinian territories claimed Israel was in some way responsible.

Building a new Iron Curtain

Unlike a great many Americans, I spend quite a bit of time on foreign news English language sites, especially Russia, North Korea, and Cuba as it's always fascinating (to me) how they bend the facts like so many coat hangers. (NO MORE WIRE HANGERS...EVER! Sorry, had a Joan Crawford moment.)
So today on the website Russia Today http://www.russiatoday.com/en
there was the daily poll. It was a good one. It asked "Do you believe the report of the official commission on 9/11?" I literally choked on the answer. I figured the number of "No" answers would be high...but would you believe 86%?
Now, I understand this site is used generally by non-Russians as it's in English. It's a safe bet most of these answers came from Canada, the US and English-speaking Europe. Who else, right?
I guess we Americans haven't cornered the market on paranoid delusions. Gee, I'll sleep better tonight.

Another September 11th

For the moment, let's ignore the fact that many Americans (probably a majority) believe we're no safer than we were on that excruciatingly painful day 7 years ago despite the evisceration of the Constitution and the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars by a president bent on Orwellian domination of the country and a Congress too busy trying not to look "soft on terrorism" to stop him. Whew...quite a long sentence, hmm?
Almost all of us recall in great detail what we were doing on September 11th, 2001. I was on my way to work when I heard a bulletin on the radio a plane had hit the WTC. I thought it was someone in a Cessna who got lost or had mechanical problems. I popped in a CD and forgot about it....until
I walked into chaos. There are few places as busy as a radio station when "the big one" hits the fan. It took me a minute or two to get up to speed, then we broke format and started covering the story best we could.
I'll always feel guilty about this. I shouldn't admit it, but I really enjoyed the first couple of hours...I was thinking that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to shine and maybe we could win some awards. About 1130 or so, it just hit me. Don't know how, but all of a sudden the whole weight of what were doing hit me at 100mph. At that point I became just one of the hundreds of millions of people watching TV and wondering not only what happened, how it could have happened, and of course, what now?
I was born after JFK was shot. I can only understand the event through the lens of history. People still remember that event in razor-sharp detail 45 years later but find it hard to explain to "the rest of us" the emotional toll of that day.
I have no doubt we will have the same problem explaining 9/11 to the next generation. Never before have we seen the entire country literally grind to a screeching halt. No planes, no sports, no comedians...nothing. Most of us didn't want those things anyway. All we wanted were answers..and Bin Laden's head. The answers we got, (even if the tin foil hat bunch disbelieve) with the added bonus of an Iraq war to ratchet up the death toll and balloon our national debt. Bin Laden's head? Even if we got it, was it worth thousands of dead and a staggering amount of money? That's for you to decide, but before you do ask yourself this...would Bin Laden's death make us safer or just fuel a sense of patriotic vengeance?

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of...broadband?

I see the brain trust that calls themselves the FCC is at it again, and they've got other lawmakers drinking the Kool-Aid.
The FCC will soon auction off a bunch of radio spectrum that is particularly suited for things like wireless broadband (think Wi-Fi on a much bigger scale). One of the conditions Chairman Kevin Martin (who is slightly to the left of Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown) wants to attach is requiring the winner to offer free wireless broadband to 95% of the country. Yes, really. In the 90's many companies came and went trying to offer products and services in an ad-supported model. None survived. Obviously history isn't a strong point for Mr. Martin.
Then Anna Eshoo, D-where-else-but California weighs in and says broadband is "a national asset". Huh? Look, I love broadband...the faster the better. That said, when did Americans become entitled to it? Bad enough taxpayers are subsidizing analog converter boxes for a small sliver of people too cheap to get cable or buy a new TV.
Ms. Eshoo and Mr. Martin: please remember one thing. The world was around for millions of years before the Internet. Broadband is much like good pizza..a very nice thing but not a requirement for human life.
You could argue food, shelter, even medical care. Internet access? Not even in the same ballpark. Stop trying to establish a legacy and do your damn job.

Smilin' Bob ain't smiling anymore.

Who says there's no good news? Today a Federal court convicted Steve Warshak of 93 (!!) criminal counts, sentenced him  to 25 years in jail and a fined him 93 grand. His company is looking at another 500 million in fines. Who the hell, you ask, is Steve Warshak? He founded Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, the makers of Enzyte.  For the few who don't know it's an herbal weiner-builder heavily advertised on TV.

It seems there were a LOT of stupid people who actually believed Smilin' Bob's pitch. When the stuff didn't work as advertised (surprise!) the company required (how funny is this?) a notarized doctors letter basically saying that your stuff is below-average before they'd offer a refund.

So to get the refund you must:

1. Be so dumb as to actually think this shit could work.

2. Call an 800 number and give your name/address/credit card info. See number one.

3. Take the stuff. See number one.

4. Go to your doctor, admit you're a grade-A moron and ask for him to write a letter telling the world you don't measure up. See number one.

5. Send this letter to the same people who swindled you in the first place and hope they actually send your money. See number one.

According to the AP story (read it HERE) http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iRwWKqK8FgMRhFIP8bgARsaYx54wD92QONF00

the company will be allowed to stay in business.  Reminds me of the now-defunct Psychic Friends Network and Miss Cleo when they got their turn in front of the judge.

Too bad Enzyte doesn't work...he could really use it at his new home for the next 25 years.

In the words of Nelson Muntz "ha ha".