Love that Cheap Gas!

The guy on TV said that gas is not too expensive.

I'm so glad to hear that because I was about to get worried.

That's right, some dude from Allstate Insurance (this is not a paid post, so they owe me) said that gas is very clearly NOT too expensive. This is because--get this--we are still buying it!

The smart guy went on to explain that if gas were too expensive, we would be buying less of it. What he didn't explain is how exactly one goes about buying less gas.

I can use less gas about as easily as I can use less air!

I thought gas was too expensive as soon as it cost me a buck fifty! Now that it is approaching four bucks, I can't figure out how I can use less. What do I cut out?

Do I tell my 14- and 16-year-old boys that I can't take them and pick them up from Bible study?

Do I stop going to church to sing and serve in various capacities four times a week?

Do I figure out a way to teach from home?

Do I stop taking my kids to music lessons?

Believe me, as cheap as I am, EVERY trip we have to take has me seeing dollar signs!

Maybe I just ought to relax and listen to the guy on TV. Fill 'er up!

A little too much reality

As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.

The Leomiti family of Santa Fe Springs, CA either didn't know that, or they decided to tempt the gods of fate anyway--they are currently being sued.

Today's L.A. Times recounts how a story that was aired on ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition quickly turned into an example of extreme ingratitude.

When five brothers from the Higgins family found themselves orphaned,their friends the Leomiti's, who had three kids of their own, invited them to move into their house.

The story was so heartwarming that ABC selected the Leomiti's to have their home remodeled to accommodate them all. The home was expanded to include nine bedrooms and cover over 4,000 square feet. The mortgage was paid off, and six cars were given to the kids of driving age.

Within weeks after the show aired as an Easter Special in 2005, most of the Higginses had moved out, citing racism as one of the reasons. The Higgins are black and the Leomiti's are Samoan.

You can read the story and draw your own conclusions. I must admit that I don't believe everything I read in the L.A. Times or any other paper, but it looks as though the Higgins siblings didn't take to the discipline standards and expectations that the Leomiti's imposed on them.

One of the Leomiti's neighbors said the Higginses started giving an attitude.

Reminds me of a time I tried to do a good deed.

I had my own gardening business and I hired a homeless young man to work with me. Being the thrifty person I am, I used to bring a sack lunch to work everyday. When I noticed that my helper had no food, I would bring him a lunch everyday too.

Guess what? He complained about the type of sandwich I made him!

Sharpton Calls for Santa Claus' Firing!

Maybe in his ignoble departure Don Imus will have finally accomplished something worthwhile.

If his firing means that all media will now be scrubbed clean of the filthy, rude, and vulgar, then he will have died a hero. A brave warrior fallen on his microphone. A sacrifice to give us all a better life.

Riiiiight...and Sanjaya will get voted off American Idol before the bald guy.

Unless the father, son, and holy spirit of political correctness--the mainstream media, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton--put their clout behind getting folks fired for flouting foul and faulty speech, it just ain't gonna happen.

Not that there aren't plenty of people who need their mouths washed out with soap.

Just google lyrics and ho and you will get an eyeful of the earful our youth are getting.

On my first try I got hits with those who are doing the most ho, ho, ho-ing (among other things): Ludacris, Trick Daddy, Kurupt, Nappy Roots, Poison Clan, and, finally, Don Ho (psych).

Since it is obviously not difficult to find offensive speech in the public sphere, it is mysterious as to why Al Sharpton and friends haven't taken care of this "ho"rrible problem already, since these artists all get airplay on the same channel as Sharpton's own radio program! Shocking!

A cynical person would think that Al Sharpton has some other agenda. But that's just really cynical people. I don't know anybody like that.

Blast from the past: Read my old post about the Bay Area sports radio personality who got the Imus Treatment before it became all the rage.

He Picked the Wrong Cereal!

Yesterday was not Larry Krueger's day.

The San Francisco talk show host stumbled upon not one, but two new ways of offending people and will certainly lose his job as soon as the caterwauling becomes shrill enough or congress gets involved--whichever comes first.

In the same commentary where he coined the ethnic slur, "Caribbean" (see previous post), he tried to improve upon the common metaphor, "his brain is mush," used to describe someone who doesn't think clearly.

Instead of the word "mush," Krueger got fancy and used the actual name of an actual mush, Cream of Wheat, when describing Giants' Manager Felipe Alou's brain.

He picked the wrong cereal.

Cream of Wheat packages have the picture of a smiling black chef offering up a bowl of steaming cereal to entice us. Apparently Krueger saying, "You have a manager in Felipe whose mind has turned to Cream of Wheat" is some sort of code for "Felipe Alou looks like that subservient black fellow on the box of Cream of Wheat.

Good thing he didn't use Count Chocula.

He could simply have said that Alou was a Fruit Loop--that's a cereal. And come to think of it, Fruit Loops have the advantage of being many different colors. They have diversity, yeah! You could call into question a persons mental processes and imply that they are part of the rainbow coalition all at the same time! Not to mention that a toucan is part of the rain forest.

It seems that Mr. Krueger needs to attend some sort of sensitivity class for serial offenders. Maybe local supermarkets could expand their businesses by conducting such classes right there in the cereal aisle. Certainly if you are going to be in radio you would need to know all the various connotations of foods in your grain group.

I wonder what would it have meant if he used Quaker Oats Instant Oatmeal as his mush of choice. Wouldn't it be more offensive for a Dominican to be called an old white guy with a wig?

Somehow I don't think anyone would have even noticed if that was the cereal he picked.

Update: Surprisingly, Larry Krueger was fired today.