Jasper Jones

So the Senate passes a bail out bill with tons of pork attached and sends it over to the House of Representatives. After several days of politicking and behind the scenes deals, the House met on Friday and passes the bail out bill. It was hand carried over to Presidnet Bush who signed it immediately.

The big whigs on Wall Street must be partying their asses off this weekend. I know that the executives at AIG all went to a 5 star resort to celebrate their Government bail out gift. This whole thing makes me so disgusted I can’t even speak.

You might have noticed that I don’t post my political views on this blog. I do have views on politics and the Presidential race and the candidates. But I’m not going to post about them or enter into a discussion with anyone unless it is face to face, one on one, mano a mano.

Thee are other sensitive subjects, too. I won’t go into too many details about my dating life. Just be assured that I do have an active and satisfying social life. I don’t name anyone from my personal life without their advance knowledge and permission.

I won’t discuss abortion or other very personal subjects on the blog. Again, I have my views and if you want to meet me face to face for a discussion or even debate, that’s totally cool with me.

I just felt the need to get that off my chest. I know some kids at school read my blog, and I have family and friends back in Nashville that read it. And since this is the internet, I might even have readers from overseas, the Government, my employer and who knows who else all reading this blog.

So, welcome dear readers, I hope you find my posts about the daily life of a college senior in Southeastern Tenneessee to be totally engrossing and entertaining!

This city’s new mayor ran on a ticket that pretty much was all about the public schools and the horrific dropout rate that this county and several of the neighboring counties are experiencing. For several years it has been widely reported that only about half of the kids entering the 9th grade make it all the way through high school to graduate. Each year from the 9th grade on about 10% of that class drops out. So the goal of our new mayor is to attack that dropout rate and find ways to keep the kids in school for all 12 years.

After about 8 months in office his special task force on education came back with two answers to the problem: pay teachers more money and hire more guidance counselors. OMFG - what a joke. That’s not an answer to the problems in our schools. What idiots!

One of my buddies at work was talking about his girlfriend’s cats and how they really like the new house they’ve rented because their is a huge backyard with trees, lots of birds, squirrels and rabbits. They moved here with 2 cats and just recently adopted a new kitten from the shelter.

This time of year there are always a lot of kittens and puppies at the shelter from the spring birthings, but there are also a lot of adult cats and dogs being surrendered by owners and many are abandoned or dropped off because of the economy. People are being evicted and having their homes foreclosed and have no way to take care of the pets any more.

This really bothers me - I just don’t see how anyone in good conscience can abandon a pet. What kind of person leaves an animal locked in an empty house and drives off? What kind of person can drive down a road and just toss kittens out of the window into  a stranger’s driveway? People who do that and people who beat their dogs or otherwise abuse their animals should be arrested and put into jail.

If you have a shelter in your community, next time you have the urge to take on a pet, I hope you will go to the shelter and adopt an animal from the shelter. And if you have anything you can donate to the shelter, here’s a list of desired items that can be dropped off and will be put into good use:

• Clean, old newspapers to be used for litter and lining cages
• Toilet seat covers (cats love to lie on them in their cages)
• Any type of cat or dog toy (plastic or washable)
• Old bath towels and blankets
• Canned cat food, any brand
• Bagged, dry dog food (particularly desired is Science Diet but other brands accepted)
• Laundry soap
• Bleach
• Heavy ceramic food and water bowls
• Antibacterial hand soap
• Candles - citrus or spice
• Paper towels

Shelters also need volunteers to come and walk dogs and play with the animals for short periods to give them exercise and socialization skills. If you have a good heart, please help the animals in your local shelter.

Went over to a friends house and she had a bowl of pistachio nuts on the coffee table. Whoa! Do you know how addicting those little green nuts can be? I mean, I’m sitting there watching the movie and talking with her and I grab a few pistachios and eat them, and then immediately reach back into the bowl for more. I couldn’t stop myself! They are much better than popcorn for sharing during a movie!

I’ll be on the lookout for a bag of pistachios next time I’m out shopping. That’s not often while I’m home on break, but you know when I get back to school next month I’ll be fending for myself again.

Oh yeah, the movie was pretty good, too. It was 3:10 to Yuma and I don’t know why I missed it in the theaters but I’m glad I had the chance to watch it. Even better, I watched with my girl and she was totally into the movie, too. Not even close to a chick flick, but we both liked it a lot.

First of all, I don’t listen to the Don Imus show. I think he’s a jackass and I don’t waste my time listening to the kind of stuff he talks about.

But I was amused when he caught the media spotlight off his “nappy haired ho’s” remark. He needed to be reeled in, and to be honest, I was surprised that he got back on the air so quickly.

But now he’s put his foot in his mouth again. I wonder how much the station management will put up with before they require him to see a shrink or just retire?

He was discussing the Pacman Jones debacle with his producer, who is black, and he mentioned all the arrests and trouble that Pacman brought upon himself while he was supposed to be playing for the Titans. Imus says, “What color is he?” (which was his first mistake) and his producer answered, “He’s African-American.” Then Imus was stupid enough to say, “Well, there you go.”

The station management needs to show Imus the back door that dumps out into the alley with the rest of the trash and say to him as they boot his ass out, “Well, there you go!”

And the Titans should have done the same thing to PacMan last year instead of rolling over like a  ____________ (fill in the blank).

One of the few places to get breakfast around here is Shoneys. There aren’t very many of them anymore - lots of them have shut down and the ones left are all owned by the same guy who just bought the whole company a year or two ago. He’s from Atlanta where he ran another chain of QSR’s - that Quick Service Restaurants, for those of you not in the biz.

I go to Shoney’s because they have a buffet and you can take what you want, whether it is breakfast stuff or fresh fruit or salad fixin’s, and you can eat all you want. Their lunch and dinner buffet is usually jut one or two meats, like fried chicken or meat loaf, but lots of good vegetables. Or you can order off the menu. But the buffet is the better deal as far as food for the dollar.

It’s ‘Flag Day’ and I’ve got my Rebel flag flying high!!!!!!!!

You know what gets me about that flag, what people think it stands for. The only thing it stands for is ‘Southern Heritage’ just like any other flag stands for the state or the country. It really ticks me off for someone to say it stands for ‘Hate’. Hate of what? I never owned any slaves and flew that flag to prove it and I honestly don’t think anyone else flew the Rebel Flag to symbolize they owned slaves.

Besides, it wasn’t the white man that captured the blacks and made them slaves. It was other Africans that captured them and sold them for slaves. I don’t agree with slavery at all but if you ask me, what our country did to the American Indians was far worse. We took their land, their way of life, and worst of all, we broke their spirit in the process.

Sure there were some slave owners that were really terrible to their slaves but think of this; If you bought a new tractor and paid a pretty good price for a good tractor, are you going to go out and beat the tractor with hammers and tear it down? Heck no, you’re going to take care of it so it can work good for you for a long time. Most slave owners treated their slaves the same way.

I know of a black man with a rebel flag on the front of his car and he understands that all it stands for is ‘Southern Heritage’. That’s someone who is a man not looking for an excuse to act this way or that way. He’s got it together and is his own man. I admire him for that.

  Kobe Bryant is without a doubt the best player in the NBA right now.  In his career he has won three championships, and is on track to be the NBA’s all time leading scorer.  Now, after twelve years of waiting, he can finally call himself the NBA MVP.  There are people that say Chris Paul is more deserving of that title this year, but the fact is, Kobe did everything that was needed of an MVP, and more.  Kobe finally became the league’s best team player this year.  He didn’t feel like he needed to carry his team.  Instead, he trusted them and they came through.  Kobe’s great team skills and excellent play lead the Lakers to the number one seed in the west.  Now they are in the second round of the playoffs and are predicted to be in the NBA finals, the exact thing the league MVP is expected to get his team to.

  Society has a fun way of making people feel good about themselves and bad about themselves at the same time.  There are so many commercials tell people that they are perfect just the way they are and that they will find their special someone without changing how they look.  Then there are all of these commercials that show weight loss pills and exercise programs.  They tell people that weight can cause stress and unhappiness.  We also see celebrities showing there bodies and tell how they have to look good to be famous.  This makes everyone want to look just like them and do the same things that that they do.  People think that they will be happy if they do all the things that these celebrities do, but few know what these means.  It means changing your daily schedules to work out twice a day on top of the running of two hours. It also mean changing your eating habits.  These celebrities pay thousands of dollars for people to design meals for them that are perfectly balanced.  Most people don’t have this type of money for this. This is putting mixed feeling and a lot of pressure on society.  People should do what makes them happy, whatever that is.  If they want to do what these celebrities do, that’s fine if that’s what makes them happy. But the main point is that if people are not happy with themselves the way they are now, then they will never be happy no matter what they look like.  It’s more about who you are than what you look like, or it should be.