Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally. No one could object to that, could they? This beast is not exactly a milestone in the history of the acronym but it contains much that is typical and objectionable in anything that goes by sentimental initials. The HOPE is famous around here, enjoying an existence as a sacred cow nearly as holy at the State level as, say, Social Security is at the Fed. It is a program (or scheme) to fund college education for Georgia students. Financed completely by lottery revenue, it was the reason the lottery was ever able to be born in this bible-belt state. Hardly anyone can remember now that there was serious opposition both moral, religious and practical when the firecracker Democrat Zell Miller rode his idea into the Governor’s Mansion in ’91 and today nearly every Georgian is touched someway by HOPE.

It seems like a fantasy now but believe it or not, in days of yore, if someone running for office proposed a new multi-billion dollar entitlement program some objection was sometimes made to the cost. Just how will this be paid for? As the gentleman said, the path to victory in any election is to not tax you and not tax me but to tax that fellow behind the tree. Miller did an end run around this dilemma. HOPE would not touch Georgia tax revenues, not a dime. Instead the State would go into a business that was otherwise illegal, basically the numbers racket. [Read more →]

Tags: money, politics & government by Ken Watson
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In an unkinder and less gentle age we might entertain ourselves with a good old fashioned octopus fight or a wrasslin’ match between siamese twins. Not between two pairs of twins mind you, but two conjoined bodies grabbing and spiraling around one another trying to get on top when, really, there is no top. If this wholesome spectacle isn’t a violation of federal civil rights codes it probably runs afoul of your local blue laws so instead let us examine closely the grunting, morbid struggle between Romney and Obama.

Mitt and Barack are, of course, joined at the healthcare. Once this was a happier state of affairs for the son of Michigan Mormons than it was for the grandson of Hawaiian commies. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, politics & government by Ken Watson
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Last weekend, the pay cable channel Starz ran the three “Toy Story” films back-to-back. Watching them one after the other provided roughly the same experience as when you’re forced to sit through an hours-long corporate meeting at which a compelling, entertaining, but ultimately hollow speaker hectors you about how much more you could be doing to help the corporation succeed. And then telling you that, for your efforts, you should expect nothing more than the personal satisfaction of knowing you’d helped the CEO make an extra $20 million. Oh, and you’re supposed to find the entire proceeding poignant.

The “Toy Story” trilogy is a perfect encapsulation of anxiety in the post-modern world. Corporate anxiety. The films promote groupthink, and the acceptance of the purveyors of mass entertainment and consumables as benevolent entities never to be questioned. In a world in which new technology is giving consumers more control over how they consume their entertainment, the big corporations want you to remember who it was who gave you your Woody.
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Tags: art & entertainment, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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What women want is simple; hearth and home, a modest but consistent social position with its income, in short a nest to safely raise her children and a benevolent protector. Where does it say that? The Book of Mormon? Well, it might, but more remarkably these are the assertions of that reliably Liberal outlet, Politico. What “women” are these? Of course this is a specifically electoral look at the fairer, but still pretty unfair, sex. They say both Republicans and Democrats have missed the boat but it is the Democrats who made the bigger splash because they traditionally claim the “women’s vote” by some margin. Occasionally it is not much, but they do rely on it. There is division even here though. While claiming “women” at large, the Democrats have not done well with “married women”. They have made this up however with wildly positive ratings among single women, single mothers, black women, latinas and, with some obvious overlap, poor women. That should surprise no one as it should surprise no one that this “study” flogged so prominently by allegedly neutral Politico powerfully over-samples, gee, exactly those subsets. [Read more →]

Tags: family & parenting, politics & government by Ken Watson
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It is highly possible that there are numerous reasons why my friends and acquaintances are glad that they are not me. So it goes. But I remember one time, in high school, when a good buddy of mine came right out and said it: “Dude, I’m so glad I am not you.”

It seems he had heard me discussing a piece of music with another musician friend. We had been tearing a song into pieces, trying to figure out what was going on with the time-signatures.

“I think I am insulted,” I responded to my candid pal.  “Why, besides the obvious stuff, do you not want to be me?” [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, religion & philosophy by Chris Matarazzo
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“Work,” Noël Coward once said, “is so much more fun than fun.”

Thomas Aquinas would have agreed. “Agere sequitur esse,” he declared. Action follows from being. You are as you do.

I also agree, especially now that I have returned to work (last week, I started a part-time, presumably temporary gig at the Philadelphia Inquirer). [Read more →]

Tags: all work, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
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Drawings from the Gulag begins unexpectedly, with a headshot of a proud homo-sovieticus from one of the USSR’s eastern minorities. Wearing thick soviet spectacles and a soviet suit, and with impeccable posture, this man gazes at you, the reader, with firm resolve. Here is a stalwart Comrade-of-the-Month, whose portrait would be placed at the entrance to a massive factory complex in some industrial soviet city. Forget bonuses and a salary raise — true glory was to be found in constructing the socialist future.

The man is Danzig Baldaev, and to his colleagues he really did appear to be a loyal soviet citizen. Born in 1925, he worked for decades in the soviet prison service- no place for the squeamish, that’s for certain. And yet flip to the first illustration in the book, a drawing of a crowd of proud revolutionaries titled ‘Inception of the Gulag’ and in the top right hand corner there is an inscription that reads: ‘Dedicated to the 70^th anniversary of the giant of Russian literature, A.I. Solzhenitsyn.  11^th November 1988’. A strange thing for a career penal officer to write, no? [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, books & writing by Daniel Kalder
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Four spending/taxing proposals came before the House last week. The Ryan plan, the RSC (Republican Study Committee) plan, the Obama plan and the most colorfully named, People’s Budget presented by the CPC, the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Friday the Capitol saw a robust display of car chases, explosions and kung fu fighting that signified nearly nothing. Paul Ryan was the star of this show if you do not count the background figure of the President. Mr. Ryan exploded into his dreamy-eyed prominence with his budget plan which, as he loves to announce first off, ignores entitlements in large measure and in any case will not have any reduction of any sort on benefits for those 55 or over. It is refreshing if depressing that Ryan states right out the reason for the double-nickel. It is political. As the man says, and no one can deny, that demographic just won’t stand for any cuts and won’t sit still for them either. This truism, held by all sensible folks, explains the heat and passion demonstrated on the floor by Ryan and all the paunchy suits one would recognize as the Republican leadership during a twisted bit of stagecraft surrounding this weighty vote. [Read more →]

Tags: money, politics & government by Ken Watson
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Ladies and gentlemen, this week we are going to take a ride in the O’Connor DeLorean, which is a 1999 Nissan Altima that has 168,762  miles, and embarrsingly enough, a Dave Matthews Band bumper sticker. I have been digging through my old writings, notes, and illegible ramblings and came across a piece I wrote about my first day of work in the “real world.” I got a good laugh from reading it, so I decided to revamp it a bit and share it with you all. So take my hand, and let’s get jiggy with it back to 1998, when boy bands ruled the charts, the Internet was still a baby, and cell phones were only for rich people and drug dealers. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Marty digs by Marty O'Connor
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As a sports fan who sometimes dislikes certain athletes for no real reason, I always feel validated when one of those guys screws up and shows the world that my disdain may have something legitimate behind it. Kobe Bryant is one such athlete. Just a few months after angering the fans of the Denver Nuggets by calling them stupid for booing Carmelo Anthony, Bryant has made a much larger splash. On Tuesday, he was given a technical foul by referee Bennie Adams late in a Lakers game against the San Antonio Spurs. He responded by using a gay slur against Adams, which was caught on camera. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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10. He’s been hiding Easter eggs in his pants

9. He’s been asking people to call him ‘Moammar’

8. He invested all his money in 8-track technology

7. Instead of hopping down the bunny trail, he’s been sashaying

6. He just declared jihad against Santa

5. He believes Newt Gingrich’s claim that Newt’s extramarital affairs stemmed from how passionately he feels about America

4. He claims his favorite television show is “It’s Always Bunny in Philadelphia”

3. He’s been sneaking into bedrooms and leaving eggs under pillows after taking away the teeth

2. All he’ll eat is artificial grass

1. He claims to have tiger’s blood, Adonis DNA, and fire-breathing fists
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, ends & odd by Bob Sullivan
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Tags: art & entertainment, politics & government by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
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Dear Mom and Dad:

I’m trying to figure something out. See, I think I am an artist. I draw pictures in notebooks and people say I am talented. “So talented,” they say. I have this feeling they think I’m great, but I’m pretty sure I’m not that good. I’m just better than most of them, which doesn’t mean I am really talented, I don’t think. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, family & parenting by Chris Matarazzo
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As the proud and loving father of a three year old boy, it has become apparent to me that parenthood is a continuous learning experience. Every morning when I wake Jack up, I’m never sure what his disposition will be, but one thing is constant – trying to dress him is like wrestling a greased crocodile. But I have concluded one cold hard fact – children love to be entertained by a giant rodent, eat sub-par pizza, and play games of chance that are a total ripoff. And that’s exactly why we took Jack to Chuck E. Cheese last week. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, Marty digs by Marty O'Connor
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Once a cheater, always a cheater. Right, Manny? In 2009, Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games after failing a test for performance-enhancing drugs. This week, a mere two years later, it was announced that he again tested positive during Spring Training. Rather than face the 100-game suspension that comes with a second positive test, Ramirez announced his retirement on Friday, effective immediately. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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In Charles Willeford’s great novel The Burnt Orange Heresy, the indifferent, arrogant art critic James Figueras, musing on his own success, observes,

Only twenty-five full-time art critics in America, out of a population of more than two hundred million! This is a small number, indeed, of men who are able to look at art and understand it, and then interpret it in writing in such a way that those who care can share the aesthetic experience.

Clive Bell claimed that art was “significant form.” I have no quarrel with that, but he never carried his thesis out to its obvious conclusion. It is the critic who makes the form(s) significant to the viewer!

The critic occupies a rarefied place. At least, the paid critic does. The man or woman who commands pages in publications such as, oh, let’s say The LA Weekly, or, to choose another publication totally at random The Washington Post, is automatically looked at with unique authority because those particular publications have history, prestige, and money behind them. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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10. My dog ate my tax form

9. My accountant was recommended by Nicholas Cage

8. I’ve decided to make my own stimulus package

7. Sarah Palin claims paying taxes contributes to Big Government Socialism

6. Math hurts my head

5. I got an April first e-mail saying we didn’t have to pay any taxes this year

4. Lindsay Lohan stole my 1040

3. I’m protesting the fact that our ‘theater of war’ has become a multiplex

2. After I claimed all the voices in my head as deductions, it turned out the government owed me money

1. I just woke up from my New Year’s Eve party
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, money, politics & government by Bob Sullivan
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Crisis averted! I guess this one will go to waste. Both Boehner and Obama have departed on insipid victory laps. Boehner takes his at a conference declaring to all those who lament that he was rolled that he will presently roll back. Obama puts on an Abercrombie windbreaker and does a more literal lap around the Washington monuments, encouraging the moppets to thank HIM that they will get to sit on Lincoln’s knee today. Well, not that, but they are going to get in. I suppose all is well then. Everyone incensed and outraged yesterday can just stick your toes in the pool over the weekend, we’ve got it all worked out.

And how is that exactly? We’ve got a budget for the half of this fiscal year that remains and it cuts some $31b, while preserving the Cherry Blossom Festival and Cowboy Poetry Slams as well as paying the GIs, somewhat important, but mostly this deal, a beatific demonstration of the bipartisanship the nation called out for last November, preserves our dignity. Lovely. Except for one thing. It didn’t happen. Allegedly the deal is “in place”, a state of affairs not really contemplated by the Constitution. What was actually passed, signed off on by all necessary parties, was just another Continuing Resolution for another week’s daily expenditures. The deal on the budget that is “in place” awaits yet more wrangling of this or that issue, meaning it is NOT a done deal which suggests to me that next week will be exactly like this week with an identical non-outcome. But it’s only Sunday so we can dream for 72 hours or so, can’t we? [Read more →]

Tags: money, politics & government by Ken Watson
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Yes, there is much to do. There is much more to be stopped. How can this not be obvious to anyone who funds, rather than milks, the government? As a former corporate type now painting houses under the table for ten dollars an hour, I do neither so offer a disinterested viewpoint.

The other day the President employed a domestic metaphor, saying that anyone who was married could understand the state of negotiations on the budget, the continuing resolutions underwhich the gub has run for months and the emergency funding proposals. Negotiating, we are informed, requires compromise and we Democrats, says Steny Hoyer, Charlie Rangel and O, have already conceded seventy-five percent from our opening position and so they have. Unsaid is that their opening position, was for an increase of spending of some $41b. So what we have here, by analogy, is not a couple squabbling over who brownbags their lunch and who gets to go to McDonald’s. Rather it is between one spouse who wants to take out a third mortgage for their own trip to Vegas and another who wants a divorce. Yes, Mr President, that does bring it home to us.

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Tags: money, politics & government by Ken Watson
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Tags: money, politics & government by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
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