An Evening with Rush

I don't know very many people who's favorite talk show host and favorite rock band share the same name.

I went to my first Rush concert in 26 years last night and boy was it interesting. The Canadian rock trio--most of whom will qualify for senior discounts at Denny's by next year--did not disappoint with a three-hour show in Mountain View, CA.

But almost as interesting to me was watching the interesting contrasts in the fans who came to see the band in it's 33rd year. Oh, how I wish I had my camera!

This is the first concert I've been to where fans needed a cane because they were old, not because they were milking the workers comp system in California.

There were leather-clad motorcycle gangers, but no gang bangers.

Man, I wish I had a camera.

There was an abundance of ear plugs (for hearing protection), but no plugged ears (for stretching out holes in lobes).

There were (what looked like) no-account hippies sitting next to accountants.

Since we were in Silicon Valley, dudes who looked like they still lived in their parents' basement rubbed elbows with millionaires who built computers in their parents' basement.

Man, I wish I had a camera

Drug use was evident, but there might have been more people on heart medication than there was smoking pot.

There were mid-back length, gray-haired comb overs playing air guitar next to neatly trimmed get-the-gray-out Grecian Formula business men.

I saw wrinkled 70's era concert tour t-shirts next to button-downs, khakis, and penny loafers.

Man, I wish I had a camera.

Other observations:

What kind of mental midget gets a kick out of seeing their text messages on the big screen above the stage? I didn't see very many Jr. highers, but listen to these nuggets that people felt compelled to text for all to see:

"They totally rock," "Yo," "Awesome," "It's, like, wow." "You rock!"

My wife said that we have reached the summit of cheap thrills.

Bad Idea Jeans

Is there anybody out there besides me and my wife who remembers that faux Saturday Night live commercial?

Bad Idea Jeans is a parody of the pretentious blue jean commercials of the time and it features a group of middle age guys in jeans hanging out. Each of them makes a statement of questionable wisdom that is followed by the words bad idea appearing on the screen. Here's an example:

"Well, he's an ex free-base addict, and he's trying to turn around, and he needs a place to stay for a couple of months."

or

"Now that I have kids, I feel a lot better having a gun in the house."

You get the idea. Anyway, all of that reminiscing was only to talk about what they are doing beginning this month in Illinois to stem the number of high school dropouts and unexcused absences.

A student in Illinois who misses 18 days of school, drops out, or is expelled will not be allowed to have a driver's license.

Bad Idea Jeans

As a teacher, I question the wisdom of such an incentive to keep people in school. In my opinion, if they don't want to be there, they should stay home. We don't need people whose likely behavior problems muck up the works in our classrooms.

There is nothing more frustrating to me than having to see the kids who know how to work and behave sitting there while I have to deal with those who don't. As a parent it riles me to no end that my kid--the good one--is being shortchanged because so much time is being devoted to someone who doesn't want to be there. (In fact, that is why my son is going to test out of H.S. and go straight to community college.)

I am all for working with kids and trying to reach them with the benefits of an education, but there has to be a point when you leave them to the logical consequences of their actions and direct your efforts towards the ones who show some promise.

It would be better if we had alternative programs for people who have proven that they are not suited to learning in the traditional institutional manner. We need trade schools where these kids will excel and experience success.

Taking away their licenses to keep their problems within the general population?

Bad Idea Jeans.

Scripted Non-scriptedness

In the world of politics, even user-generated content ends up being the same old same old.

Tonight's YouTube/CNN Democratic debate has the alluring novelty of offering up the candidates performing without a net, open to the whims and wisdom of actual people asking actual questions rather than softballs placed on a t-ball stand by a complicit media.

This is not going to be any different than the many townhall events where people stand up and ask questions. That the questions will be submitted on YouTube is just a gimmick. They will still be the questions that CNN wants asked, candidates warned ahead of time.

If I was able to ask questions, these might be among them:

Mr. Barack Hussein Obama, is it true that you were educated in a Muslim school in Indonesia for four years? Why havn't you spoken about that very much? How do you think that aspect of your upbringing will affect your attitude toward rising threats from Islam?

Mrs. Hilary Clinton, how big a priority are you going to make universal health care?
What would you say to the people who want no part in the government telling them how they must handle their health anymore than they want the government telling them where to buy their groceries?

Mr. John Edwards, How can you say that a war against people who seek our annihilation is simply a bumper sticker war? Do you have a Edwards '08 bumper sticker? Is your campaign a bumper sticker or a plan?

Readers, I am sure you can do better than I. What questions would you ask the Democratic candidates if a miracle occurred and actually let some questions get through?

Like a Gold Ring in a Pig's Snout

If you can't do anything right, hire a marketing firm--that's what Pittsburgh Public Schools is doing.

Oops, sorry, make that Pittsburgh Schools because the marketing consultant thought they could improve their image by ditching the word public.

This is just wrong.

First of all, if I were a tax-paying resident of Pennsylvania, I would be outraged that my money was going toward mere window dressing instead of actual academic needs.

Second of all, if students weren't educated in an appropriate manner, maybe they should drop the word school.

Sealing their own Fate

Apparently New British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has a death wish for his country.

In a stunning example of how not to deal with terrorism, Brown has banned government officials from using the word Muslim in connection with talk of their current terrorism crisis.

That's like not using the word water when dealing with a flood, or the word idiot when talking about Michael Moore.

According to the Daily Express, he wants to improve relations with the Muslim community. Outstanding! I hear that's what they want too: when all non-Muslims are blown to bits, relations will be great!

The article goes on to say that Brown wants to avoid offending Muslims and that he also wants to discontinue use of the term "war on terror".

What the incredibly dense Mr. Brown fails to understand is England's very existence is offensive to some Muslims.

I would gloat that we are much smarter in America, but of course it is not true.

The "Do Nothing" Immigration Idea

When in doubt do nothing?

A new article in the online version of The American suggests that the problem with illegal immigration will pretty much fix itself in a decade or so.

Now that's the type of problem solving I like: kick back and relax; no muss, no fuss.

It turns out that a change in the rate of Latin American reproduction holds the key.

"There has been a stunning decline in the fertility rate in Mexico, which means that, in a few years, there will not be nearly as many teenagers in Mexico looking for work in the United States or anywhere else. If this trend in the fertility rate continues, Mexico will resemble Japan and Italy—rapidly aging populations with too few young workers to support the economy."

Since Mexico's fertility rate has dropped 36 percent since 1990, there will soon be too few workers to support the economy, jobs will be more plentiful and wages will rise--presto, no need to come to America.

Several items are cited as reasons that the birth rate has changed, not only in Mexico, but throughout the region. Among those factors are better education, greater acceptance of birth control including abortion, and improved job opportunities for women.

Check it out. It is a short, interesting read.

S.F. Mayor Bans Bottled Water

San Franfreako Mayor Gavin Newsome has finally done something that I agree with.

It seems that in the past 4 1/2 years, city government has spent more than two million dollars on bottled water--Newsome is going to put a stopper to that.

Frankly I don't understand how it became a city function to buy water for its employees in the first place. Last I checked, the City of San Francisco had running water.

In a way I think it is ironic that a place that is a hotbed for environmental (did you ever notice the word mental was part of that adjective?) activism should be switching to water au natural. After all, it's on the strength of their wailing that people think we actually have unclean drinking water--us, the United States of America.

So, the people who contributed heavily to the myth of our polluted water helped lead us to the idea that we needed to pay for what we could get for free.

I actually drink bottled water. I take a bottle and fill it up from my tap.

Silly Hippies!

I just had to laugh as I read this L.A. Times article about how things have changed at ground zero for the counterculture movement of The Sixties, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury.

Actually, things haven't changed that much at all, but the article mentions the disgust that old-time flower children have for what is going on there today.

Arthur Evans has lived at Haight-Ashbury for 34 years, but he is not happy with the current group of "gutter punks" that he sees roaming the streets.

"I used to be a hippie. I wore beads and grew my hair long," he said. "But my generation had something these kids do not: a standard of civilized behavior."

Hah! He doesn't get it! He is reaping exactly what he has sown! You don't tell people to "tune in, turn on, and drop out" and expect the slide down the slippery slope to stop at long hair and colorful clothing.

Evans' very own "standard of civilized behavior" was decidedly uncivilized in the 60's.

What people in this article are complaining about is the exact byproduct that we expect: out of disorder you get more disorder.

Instead of criticizing, Mr. Evans should do as Dr. Frankenstein before him: look down upon his creation and bellow, "What have I done?!"

As much as we hate them, rules exist for a purpose. Actions have consequences. Right and wrong used to have a meaning; you can't marginalize those meanings and expect things to run well any more than you could plant crabgrass and expect to gain a rosebush.

Silly hippies. They got exactly what they bargained for while infecting the rest of society with the same plague!

Now that is not something that makes me laugh.

Talking out of both sides of their mouth

The illegal immigration mongers can't even get their stories straight.

According to a Modesto Bee article last month, there will be tremendous shortages in farm workers this summer because immigrants have recently found better-paying jobs in construction. The article says that sixty percent of the one million jobs in the housing market went to immigrants.

Today, in the same California newspaper, farmers say the shortages are due to the fact that Congress hasn't passed a new immigration bill yet.

So which one is it guys?

When Bush pondered an amnesty bill in 2004, some experts estimated that illegal immigration increased twenty-five percent. That makes sense.

But it doesn't make sense for them to wait until the bill is passed; wouldn't they want to get here before the bill goes through since it only benefits those who are here at that point? Duh.

I am sure that right now people are pouring across the border since this goofy "Z" immigration thingy will only help people who came across before January 1st.

What the heck? Are they somehow time stamped when they come across? Otherwise, how do we know who was here before January 1st and who came yesterday?. (I know, the bill says they have to "prove" they were here by then, big whoop.)

All this is pretty interesting, but perhaps the most telling development is that we have so many illegals now that they are taking over the construction business too.

Now not only is farmwork something that Americans won't do, Mexicans won't do it either!

Larry Flynt Proves my Point

Talk about your support coming from unlikely places.

Earlier this week I wrote about Reverend Jerry Falwell's death and how the man was being judged and reviled for the opinions he held rather than how he lived his life and actually treated people. I said that his life--who he really was--was taken out of context like the quotes the media used to build him into a monster.

Noted pornographer and long-time Falwell adversary Larry Flynt wrote an opinion piece in today's L.A. Times that essentially validates what I said:

"My mother always told me that no matter how repugnant you find a person, when you meet them face to face you will always find something about them to like. The more I got to know Falwell, the more I began to see that his public portrayals were caricatures of himself. There was a dichotomy between the real Falwell and the one he showed the public."

I say again: it is not the opinions people hold that dictate what type of person they are. It is whether in spite of their views they still treat people with respect and kindness.

Larry Flynt figured this out and clearly will not be celebrating the death of a man he called, friend.

The Purple Teletubbie is Gay

The Reverend Jerry Falwell is dead today at the age of 73. So far as I know, at least one celebration is planned to mark the occasion, while media from the national news to the blogger down the street will be telling us what he was all about.

Too bad they will get it mostly wrong.

Like most public figures on both sides of the political spectrum, Falwell was often taken out of context.

I want to suggest that his was a life taken out of context as well.

We have all heard how he said homosexuality and abortion were immoral. Many know that he suggested 9/11 was partly attributable to America's moral decline. Everyone remembers the Teletubbie thing, even though he never actually said what is attributed to him.

Those things aren't The Reverend Jerry Falwell anymore than the things we think and occasionally verbalize is any one of us. We all believe and think things that can be used by our enemies to make us look dumb or evil.

I don't know Falwell either, but it is my guess that America is all the poorer because we don't know the full context of the man's life.

There are many people who are grieving today because they do.

I am so glad that there is something higher than the media that is the ultimate arbiter of a person's legacy.