It's All In The Name

A Chicago woman who called her cable company to complain about something found her next bill addressed to "Bitch Dog." And in a similar case, Jeffrey Barnes found that his power company had begun addressing its bills to "Jeffrey Scrotum Bag Barnes."

Well, guess that explains why the White House gets electric bills addressed to "Mr. Lying Sack Of Crap Who Misled The American People, Betrayed Their Trust, Invaded The Wrong Freaking Country, And Still Won't Admit He F*cked Up."

Conclusions

All too often we are oblivious as to how our words or actions may be misinterpreted by others. Likewise, those around us may sometimes jump to conclusions without knowing all the facts. And if the two scenarios should ever cross paths, someone will likely end up getting hurt.

CBGB's

CBGB's is a small club in New York city that, for the last 30 years, has been a starting point for a number of bands that would eventually make it big. Many people credit CBGB's for also launching the punk rock scene in the late '70's by showcasing groups such as the Ramones, Blondie, and the Talking Heads. But now, because of rent increases and ongoing disputes with its landlord, the establishment is facing eviction at the end of the month.

Among the individuals and groups that have come to its aid are Deborah Harry, Tommy Ramone, and E Street Band member "Little Stevie" Van Zandt. Little Stevie also happens to play Silvio on The Sopranos, a character who has capped his fair share of wiseguys for Tony.

Hmmmm.... If I were the landlord, I think I'd offer to cut back on that rent increase.

Salvation

An article in today's USAToday explores the declining influence of religion throughout western Europe. Church attendance is plummeting, the percentage of people identifying themselves as religious has dropped, and Spain--a predominantly Catholic country--recently legalized gay marriage. And while the article doesn't specifically say so, I imagine that a sizable majority of these godless heathens believe in Darwin's Theory of Evolution, support stem cell research, and have been seduced by the paganistic allure of science.

The solution is obvious: The world's most powerful Theocracy--the United States--should invade Europe and kill anyone who doesn't immediately agree to have their soul saved.

Maybe They Could Apply Foam To The Thing

Scientists have known for a while now that a large asteroid will pass within 25,000 of Earth on April 13, 2029 (I've thoughtfully provided a countdown clock at the bottom of the lefthand column). While close, it's still a miss.

However, further analysis has now alarmed the people who are paid to be alarmed by this kind of stuff. The concern is that the asteroid will pass through a "gravitational sweet spot" which will significantly change the space rock's orbit. Should that happen, the asteroid would smash into the Earth a mere seven years later, possibly leading to the collapse of civilization and perhaps even the extinction of man.

It is unclear what effect this would have on the current housing bubble.

Consequently NASA scientists have begun studying the feasibility of somehow "nudging" the intruder into a different orbit.

Who are they kidding!?!?! Did you see the look on the faces of the mission controllers when Discovery touched down yesterday? They appeared to be genuinely surprised the crew got back in one piece!! I have nothing but respect for the folks at NASA, but if it's going to be up to them to save the world, we're royally f*cked.

Remembrance

This past Friday my mother passed away at the age of 83. She had been in declining health for sometime, so it was not unexpected. On the other hand, that doesn't make it any easier to accept.

Since then I've wondered what to say, if anything. Personal matters are not something I usually talk about here. But at the funeral service today my nephew delivered an eloquent summary of my mother's life and times that I could only have hoped to equal, so with his permission I'm posting his words here....

________________________________________________________

Hungary was rebuilding itself after World War I. In the small farming village of Bate, Hungary, Rose Gyurko, my grandmother, was born on March 6, 1922.

In 1938 she married my grandfather, a young man from the next town, Eugene Cseplo. A year after they married, World War II broke out in Europe when Germany invaded Poland. Hungary tried to stay out of the conflict but reluctantly became part of the Axis for fear of invasion by the Nazis.

Grandpa was eventually drafted into the German army. He was stationed in a nearby town. It was during this period that my mother, Margaret, was born. As the Russians advanced west, grandpa was able to avoid being sent to the front by having himself conveniently captured by the British. He spent the remainder of the war as a POW.

Without grandpa, my grandmother was left to plow the fields, milk the cows, and raise her daughter alone.

When the Soviet army swept through Hungary pushing out the Germans, the Russians used grandma's house as their local command center. Grandma and my mother had to live with relatives while Marshall Zukov, Stalin's right hand man, slept in her bed.

Grandma had a story about how the Russians used the local Hungarian women to bail water all day from the bomb craters on the airfield, thus creating a human shield to protect the local airstrip from German bombing. In protest my grandmother and the other women did this while wearing all black. Grandma always took pride in her little rebellion against the Russians.

Eventually the war ended and grandpa was freed. He returned home to his family after a year or two of separation. He entered politics during a period of free elections and became head of the Small Farmers Party in Hungary. Then in 1947 the Communist Party under Stalin took over the Hungarian government. My grandfather was given an ultimatum: Join the Communist Party as Secretary of Agriculture or go to prison for being anti-communist.

Due to his strong principles his only option was to flee Hungary immediately and cross the border into Austria, saying goodbye to Rose and his daughter without knowing if they would ever be together again. And once again, Rose was again alone to tend the farm and raise a child.

During this time the KGB would periodically raid the house looking for any correspondence from my grandfather to her. They never discovered grandpa's letters from Paris hidden under the attic floorboards.

Then came three years without any correspondence at all from grandpa. His whereabouts were unknown to grandma. My grandmother and mom eventually heard him speaking on Voice of America. He was alive and in the United States, but it was unclear if they would ever be together again.

Every time grandma tried legal means to leave Hungary she was turned down. Then in 1956 the Hungarian Revolution broke out. While it did not succeed, grandma saw an opportunity in all the chaos. With help, she and my mother were able to travel to a town near the border. One night they were led across the border into Yugoslavia. Thus began their journey to America to reunite with my grandfather.

They were reunited in New York after ten years of separation. My grandmother and mother joined my grandfather on his farm in Herndon, Virginia. Finally my grandparents' lives together could begin, and soon after my uncle Andrew was born.

In the early 1960's they moved to Catlett in Fauquier County. My grandparents ran the dairy farm there by themselves. I never saw grandma sit and relax. There was always work to be on the farm. Most of my earliest memories are from there. I loved being on the farm with my protective grandmother watching over me. The world of the farm, with the cows, the trains, the dogs, Andrew's matchbox cars, and especially the smell of grandma's Hungarian Goulash are the best memories I have from my childhood.

In the late 1970's they retired from farming and moved to a small house in Manassas. They still worked side by side as the custodians at the Knights of Columbus hall on the grounds of All Saints School and church. I attended school there and still remember seeing my them almost every day. Grandma and grandpa would come out of the Knights' hall at the start of recess to say hello to me on the playground.

Eventually grandpa's health began to deteriorate, and grandma took care of him. He died in 1991, just after they celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary. Now, after 14 more years of separation, grandma has reunited with grandpa yet again. And this time they will be inseparable for all of eternity.

My grandmother's life spanned from the Old World to the New World and from horse drawn carts in her early days to seeing men walk on the moon. She survived the Third Reich, and saw the fall of the iron curtain and the breakup of the Soviet Union. She lived to see the dawn of the 21st century and a new millennium.

Most importantly, she lived to see the birth of her two great-grandchildren, Alexandra and Robert. She was a little upset, pointing out that Alexandra was a Russian name.

We could see the joy these two brought her in the end, and how she would light up upon seeing them. Her great-grandchildren--her little chickens, as she called them--gave her comfort in knowing that all her life's hardships had served a purpose.

Grandma, you will not be forgotten.

---------Delivered by Thomas Leal, August 8, 2005


Rose Cseplo
March 6, 1922-August 5, 2005

President George W. Bonehead

Many of Bush's harshest critics have long insulted his intelligence, which is unfortunate. The man has twice--well, maybe one and a half times--gotten himself elected President. And he managed to accomplish this even after he invaded the wrong freakin' country!! That says a lot for him, and I've actually been starting to develop a grudging respect for the lying sack of crap.

But then he goes and says something so incredibly stupid that it can only serve to remove all doubt that the man is a total, absolute, consummate, utterly indisputable, complete, one hundred per cent, out-and out, unadulterated imbecile.

The other day, in an interview with some Texas reporters, Bush actually said that intelligent design should be taught in public schools as an alternative to evolution. "Both sides ought to be properly taught," said the President, "so people can understand what the debate is about."

Debate? What debate? There is no debate in the scientific community about evolution. There has never been a shred of evidence to dispute it. The only thing the proponents of creationism have to go on is that the development of humanity is so complicated that some "unseen force" must be guiding it.

That statement is really nothing more than an admission of stupidity. Most people can't grasp the concept of infinity, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Nor can the average person understand how splitting a tiny little atom can generate enough energy to power an entire city--or level it--but that doesn't mean it's magic. And I can't fathom why something as heavy as the moon doesn't fall on us, but that doesn't mean it's filled with helium.

Besides, look at what's happening in the world today. If there is indeed some sort of "unseen force" out there guiding us, it's got one hell of a twisted sense of humor.

If you want to teach intelligent design, fine. Include it as part of an elective religion course. But to suggest that it should be taught in science classes as some sort of reasonable alternative to evolution is beyond the pale.

What's next? Exuming Darwin's body and trying his remains on charges of heresy? What the hell.... Let's also dig up Galileo, Copernicus, Ptolemy, Kepler, and anyone else who dared challenge the church and bring western civilization out of the dark ages.

No Guilt

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb. This is one of those days where much of the world likes to blame the horror of what happened in Hiroshima on the United States. The Japanese, especially, like to talk about they were the victims of what happened on this date in 1945.

Well, okay. All those candle light vigils in Japan held on August 6th of every year are quite moving. But I'm just curious: Do the Japanese ever shed tears over the 370,000 Chinese they slaughtered in the rape of Nanking? Or the thousands of POW's that died during the Bataan Death March? Or the tens of thousands of women in captured territories that the Japanese forced into sexual slavery? Or Japan's experiments with germ warfare using prisoners as human guinea pigs?

War is a horrible thing, and unfortunately people die. But when one considers how many deaths Japan's belligerence caused, and how many more would have died if the fighting had gone on longer, there's no reason for Americans to feel guilt over what happened at Hiroshima.

Sticking To The Earth

Last weekend I finally made the leap to satellite radio and ended up landing with something of a thud. The whole experience has been a disappointment.

First of all, both XM and Sirius offer plans at $12.95 a month, and I actually had decided to go with XM only because they're based here in DC. But then upon closer inspection I started finding differences in their online services.

If you want to listen to XM through your computer, the service is an additional $4.99 for subscribers (or $7.99 for non-radio customers). That's not too bad, but here's the kicker: They will sign you out after two hours for inactivity if you don't periodically click onto the player and bring it into the foreground. That really irritated me.

Sirius, on the other hand, offers online listening to its subscribers at no additional charge. And--more importantly--they don't sign you out. That actually tipped the scales for me, so that's why I bought a Sirius receiver. But after activating it, I couldn't access the online player any more! For some reason it kept trying log me into the now expired three day trial player. An exchange of several emails with their support people proved fruitless. The morons would end up answering questions I didn't ask, or giving me solutions to problems I wasn't experiencing. At one point they even changed my username for some reason.

I'm guessing their customer support people are in freakin' India and can't read English. I suppose moving such operations overseas saves payroll, but what good does that do if you end up pissing off your customers?

But the most disappointing aspect of satellite radio is the reception itself. And the ugly truth is that reception is an integral part of listening to radio.

While its surprisingly great in downtown DC, working in even some long tunnels, that's only because they use terrestrial 'repeaters' in urban areas. Once you get about 20 miles outside of town, it quickly goes downhill.

All kinds of obstructions can interfere with the signal, the most common being highway overpasses and trees.

With the overpasses, the break in the signal actually occurs a few seconds after you're back in the open. This delay is presumably because the radios have a buffer built in which is specifically supposed to prevent such interruptions. I had heard this buffer was ten seconds long, which would prevent most such breaks in coverage. Turns out that's a crock. It's barely two seconds, if that. I would guess that well over half the overpasses I encountered (outside the range of the repeaters) caused problems, and these occurred even at 65 mph.

The other issue, surprisingly, is trees. And since a sizable portion of my driving is on rural two lane roads lined with evil trees, this is quite annoying. Worst of all, it doesn't even have to be a heavily wooded area with a 'canopy' of leaves over head. Just having a few trees close together on one side of the road can pose problems if they happen to be between you and the satellite. Guess maybe I should be more careful about mapping out my routes.

On the other hand, all those damn trees are enough to make me rethink my opposition to Bush's environmental policies.

So is satellite radio worth it? Well, I suppose if you do a lot of cross-country interstate highway travel, then the answer is yes, provided you're willing to put up with the occasional overpass induced interruption. It does prevent having to hunt for a new station every hour or so.

But at 13 bucks a month, it's not for me. Call me cheap, but for that kind of money I expect much more consistent service.

A Bittersweet Ending.... And Beginning

Back on May 7, 26 year old Susan Torres of Arlington, Virginia suffered a massive stroke brought on by an undiagnosed tumor. By the time she got to the hospital, she was brain dead.

Already the mother of a two year old, Susan was 15 weeks pregnant with a second child when she fell ill . Unfortunately, fetuses are generally not able to survive outside the womb until the 24th week.

It was under those dire circumstances that family members and doctors decided to take the longest of long shots: Keeping her on life support until the baby could be safely delivered.

And so it was that yesterday at 8:18 AM, Susan Anne Catherine Torres--weighing all of 1 pound, 13 ounces--came into the world. While she will remain in the neonatal unit for the foreseeable future, doctors have pronounced little Susan healthy.

Remarkably, trained medical professionals were able to accomplish all this without the help of George W. Bush and the United States Congress.

Ten's A Crowd

Astronomers have announced the discovery of what is likely to be classified as the tenth planet of our solar system. It has tentatively been given the terribly imaginative name of 2003 UB313.... And some people say scientists are unromantic geeks.

NASA is expected to launch an unsuccessful mission to our new neighbor any day now.

Meanwhile, astronauts on board Discovery will soon be conducting another spacewalk, this time to correct a potential problem with the shuttle's heat shield. Officials at the space agency emphasize that this new development is not a result of the foam that broke off during launch.

Um, okay. Is that supposed to be somehow reassuring? Whatever the cause of the problem, if I were on board Discovery I'd be grabbing a parachute right about now and heading out the airlock.... After changing my shorts, of course.