Squib Sleeps Where Squib Wants

Not that anybody is probably paying that close attention, but I kind of skipped out on posting last week. Nothing was really going on, so I thought that I would wait and see if anything worth mentioning might happen over the weekend.

I was not disappointed.

Late Friday night, Megan and I were taking our dog Dexter for walk. I was mostly enjoying the walk. Again, it was late, so it was quiet and there was no traffic. The weather was near perfect and, in fact, I was reminded of the late night strolls Megan and I took around the streets of Italy on our honeymoon. It was nearly idyllic, except for one thing really. Taking a dog for a walk with a dog trainer can be something of a mixed bag when said dog trainer is trying to train said dog on how to walk on a leash. It involves lots of stopping and then walking backwards and waiting for the dog to catch on. I sometimes feel like I'm being trained almost as much as the dog is, but like I said it was nice, and we weren't really in any hurry, so I was actually enjoying myself.

We started our walk heading south and then turned west. After a few blocks we turned north and after hitting Burt Street, we turned east to make our way back home. We were up the hill on Burt when all three of us noticed something. Now, on this particular stretch of Burt, there is only one street light on the side of the street we were on, so the street is dark. Really dark. But as we headed up the street I could just make out something lying on the curb. It was a bicycle. At first, I thought that some careless neighborhood kid had simply left his bike outside. That is until we were almost right next to the bike and we saw something else lying next to the bike. A body. A body stretched out with one half over the curb and the other half from the waist down sprawled out in the street.

Before I could stop myself I practically screamed out, "Oh my God!" And as I stood there trying to discern what exactly I was looking at, I glanced up to see that Megan and Dexter had jetted almost to the top of hill. I had no idea the two of them could run that fast, let alone uphill.

Despite the fact that I was now alone standing over a body in almost complete darkness, I wanted to try and assess the situation as best I could. The first thing that popped in my head was that some poor kid had been hit on his bike and left, presumably for dead lying on the side of the road. I was considering my limited first aid training and pondering CPR and mouth to mouth when I first heard it. I held my breath to listen closer to make sure I heard it correctly. Yup, I heard it correctly. It was snoring. Loud snoring. Whoever this was, he was neither an accident victim, nor some poor kid sleeping on the street. This was some idiot, make that a probable drunk idiot, who had decided that sleeping halfway out on the darkest part of a busy street was a good idea.

At that point, I decided that Megan and Dexter had the right idea. I had no intention of waking this guy up. Let's face it, anyone who is drunk enough to lay down in the street to take a nap might not be altogether pleased to have his sleep interrupted. As I joined Megan and Dexter at the crest of the hill, which was thankfully under a street light, I could tell Megan was a little freaked out. Dexter on the other hand was doing a good job of keeping it together. I could tell that Dexter thought that the best course of action would be to go back down the street and lick the guy in the face until he awoke, but Dexter's a dog and that tends to be his solution to most problems. While we took Dexter's idea under consideration, we ultimately decided that this might not be the best course of action, as again we weren't sure what Sleeping Beauty's mindset would be once he awoke to a dog licking his face. Megan and I decided that calling the police would probably be the best course of action, and although I think Dexter was disappointed, I'd like to think that he also agreed.

So, standing on the corner under a street light I called 911. This, by the way, was a first for me and since I wasn't sure if this actually constituted an emergency, I told the operator when she answered by saying "911, what's your emergency?" that I wasn't really sure if I had an emergency. For future reference, this is not a smart thing to do. I'm not sure if people call 911 on a regular basis just to chat, but when you call 911 and say that you're not sure if you have an emergency, they put you on hold. They put you on indefinite hold. I was on hold for so long, my phone, which is admittedly pretty shitty, started beeping at me to tell me it's out of juice.

Now, at this point I thought the best idea would be to go home and call from there, since my phone was dying. Megan was adamant that we stay and make sure homeboy wasn't run over. As usual Megan was right, so we stood there waiting for 911 to come back. As we stood waiting a car did actually pass by our mysterious snorer, but far from running him over, they stopped to see if they could help as well. Megan, Dexter, and I were far enough away that we couldn't tell exactly what was going on, but we were close enough to discern that they had rolled down their window and were trying to wake Mr. Sleepyhead from the car. We were also close enough to tell that it wasn't happening. The car then pulled up the street towards us and into a nearby driveway, where a couple of the occupants went inside and a couple of the others made their way back down the street to our unconscious friend.

Megan and Dexter made their way toward the house to let them know what we were doing and to offer their help. With two people now trying to rouse the sleeper once again, I could tell that Dexter thought it was good time to implement his licking the face strategy, but Megan somehow convinced him to stay with her. For my part, I decided that my phone would die before 911 actually took me off hold, so I hung up and called back. This time when the operator answered, "911, what's your emergency?" I was ready. I quickly launched into explaining that while my wife and I were taking our dog for a walk we came across an unconscious man. This time, I got their attention.

The 911 operator sounded much more concerned than I was, asking questions about what the "victim" looked like and whether we saw any blood. I calmly pointed out that since it was really dark and we had our dog with us and we didn't want to startle the guy, we didn't really look that closely. But no, in fact, we didn't think there was any blood, in fact I said the guy appeared to be "intoxicated." I'm not really sure why I lapsed into police-speak there, and I felt kind of dumb after saying it, because who really says that someone looks "intoxicated" other than police. With all the questions I was starting to feel a little guilty for not seeing this as more of a possible emergency. That is, until she then asked me if he was breathing and I said yes, in fact, he was snoring. Now, I might have imagined it, but there seemed to be a slight pause before she said that she'd be sending a rescue unit. A pause that seemed to say, "Oh, I got you. It's some drunk guy passed out in the street." But again, it might have been my imagination.

After finishing my call to 911, I walked down the hill to join Megan and the owner of the house who had also spotted our friend lying in the street. I gave them an update on the 911 situation and we stood around BSing while waiting for the authorities to arrive and/or his companions to wake up Sleeping Guy. We didn't go back down the street to where he was laying, but from where we were we could hear the two newcomers trying to wake him up by shouting at him loudly. He just kept on snoring. Eventually, they gave up and joined us up the street. The two guys walked up the street shaking their heads. Mr. Sleephead was out for the count. I asked the older of the two guys if he was drunk and he just chuckled and said, "Oh-ho-ho-ho yeah." I'm not sure, but I think that's code for, "Yes. The man in question is undoubtedly intoxicated. In fact, I do believe he is currently in a state more commonly referred to as 'shit-canned,'" but I'm not sure. In fact, the theory that the two guys who tried to wake him up had come up with was that he was trying to ride home on his bike drunk, and he decided that it either wasn't happening or it wasn't worth it, and he just decided to lay his bike down and go to sleep. This seemed like a pretty sound theory. So sound, that I think even Dexter agreed.

Anyhow, 911 wasn't fooling around or taking any chances even if they thought it was just a case of a drunken pedestrian sleeping it off in the street. The first to show up was a fire engine, then an ambulance, then a squad care. The guys from the house went down when the fire engine showed up to show where he was laying and to help out. Megan and I knew that Dexter would just get in the way with his own brand of resuscitation, so we hung back with him. I wanted to beg off back home, but Megan thought that having Dexter around all the commotion and flashing lights would be good for his training. Since we're not training Dexter to be a rescue dog, I wasn't sure I agreed, but we stuck around anyway. Eventually, the guys from the car came back up the street to give the rescue workers some space and to give us an update.

The rescue workers had finally been able to wake up our drunken bike rider and get a little bit of information out of him. He was eventually able to tell them that his name was Squib and that he was 19. Now, I've never heard the name Squib before, but I gotta tell ya, that sounds about right. However, we all had a little problem believing he was 19. I thought to myself that if he was 19, then Megan and I were actually about 10 and much too young to be out at that time of night. I mean, I know it was dark, but if that guy was 19, he had been drinking since before he was born, because he looked tore up.

Once nosy nellies started driving by and asking us what was going on, we began to feel a bit like nosy nellies ourselves and decided to finally make our way back home. I was tired and it was time to go to sleep. Somehow, and I'm not quite sure how, but I was able to make it home and into bed, rather then passing out on the curb, laying halfway in the street. And I'd like to think that Ol' Squib was more comfortable sleeping it off in the drunk tank that he was on the street. That curb had to killing his lower lumbar region.

Latin Lingo, Funky Bilingual

My apologies to anyone reading this who thought it would a Cypress Hill post, but it's about the Star Spangled Banner. Now, I don't know if anyone else has been following this whole "controversy" over the national anthem being translated into Spanish. The whole thing really feels like some misdirection dreamed up by the powers that be to distract from the real problems affecting our country. Why pay attention to inflation, health care, immigration, and war, when the real problem is obviously singing the national anthem in Spanish? The other problems are much too complex and nuanced, so here's something else you can get outraged about instead! Is it just me, or is this almost exactly the same as the whole gay marriage smokescreen during the last presidential election?

On May 1, Lamar Alexander, the Republican Senator from Tennessee issued a press release denouncing a new translation of the national anthem into Spanish. In it he says the Star Spangled Banner has “never before…been rendered in another language.” Apparently, he has never been to the State Department Website, where you can find four separate versions in Spanish. For those thinking that this is a fairly recent development, it turns out the United States Bureau of Education actually commissioned a Spanish language translation back in 1919.

Okay, so Alexander was wrong about it being in Spanish, but surely it's never been "rendered" in any other languages, right? Well, according to The Seattle Times, the Library of Congress also has translations in Polish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Armenian, and other languages as well. Hell, I did a little Googling on my own, and found one in German...on the Library of Congress website.

Now that this has become such a hot topic, President Bush even chimed in saying, "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English." Maybe he should think back to his 2000 Presidential Campaign, where according to Republican Analyst Kevin Phillips' book American Dynasty, he sung the national anthem in Spanish. Since Bush officials can't recall whether or not that ever happened (notice that they're not saying that it didn't happen), at the very least he should talk to his wife then, who happens to be honorary chairwoman of The National Anthem Project, where again according to The Seattle Times, "If you need a mariachi or steel-drum version of the national anthem, they've got you covered."

Getting back to Lamar Alexander, I have to say that he had the best quote about the whole issue by far. Here's the quote, which I found on his own website:

"That is why our national motto is E Pluribus Unum, one from many. That is why the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag, the Oath of Allegiance for new citizens, and the National Anthem - all important symbols of our national unity - were written in, and should be said or sung in, our common language, English."

I don't know about you, but if I were fighting to keep something in English, I think it might undermine my case somewhat to quote something in another language. Like say Latin. But maybe that's why I'm not a politician and he is. I mean, that's what I call thinking outside the box.

Ricketts Can Stick It

(Editor's Note: Katie, this one's for you.)

With the midterm elections coming up the blitzkrieg of campaign commercials is in full swing. Working at a TV station means once I step out of my office, it's nearly impossible to avoid seeing what we're currently broadcasting. Throughout the day I catch snippets of game shows, soap operas, and talk shows. I also see more than my fair share of commercials, which by the way seem to be of a much lower quality than those shown during prime time, but, that's beside the point. Recently it seems I simply can't escape Pete Ricketts' cue ball-like visage calling out from the TV screen and telling me why I should vote for him. It's about all I can do to keep myself from screaming at him to shut it. This would, after all, prove to be rather counterproductive. First of all, he can't hear me since he's on the TV and not in the same room with me, and second, I think my coworkers might think that I've lost it (if they don't already).

You see, Pete Ricketts is running for senate here in Nebraska. And while I have nothing against him personally, since I've never met the guy, his commercials really make my blood boil. Is it because he's a Conservative Republican? Honestly, the answer is no. Having lived it either Nebraska or Kansas my entire life, I've grown accustomed to seeing conservatives espouse their points of view in campaign commercials. I may disagree with their views (although I do have some conservative views of my own), but disagreeing with someone's political views is not something that sets me off. So what does infuriate me about the Ricketts ads? It's that Ricketts' messages are often times hidden in political code, misleading, or outright lies.

In almost all of his ads Ricketts says he's for "conservative change." Since he's running for senate here in Nebraska, I really can't see the logic in that statement. Yes, Nebraska currently has a Democratic senator in Ben Nelson, but he too is considered conservative. Nelson votes with the Republican Party almost as much as he votes with his own party. So, I guess Ricketts' idea of conservative change would mean a senator that votes Republican more often, or more likely, all of time. Still, that's all pretty straightforward stuff, nothing really misleading there and nothing I really take umbrage with. It's when Ricketts focuses in from the broader "conservative change" platform to more specific changes he has in mind that I start to get hot under the collar.

In ads like "Believe" Ricketts posits that the government has gotten out of touch with mainstream American values. Again, I'm in almost total agreement with Mr. Ricketts there. Where we differ however, is apparently on what those values are. But I can't really attack someone's belief system, even if they seem to calling for the abolition of the Separation of Church and State. What I can attack is Ricketts' platform. So I think the Ricketts' spot "Intro," is a good place to start. In this spot, Ricketts say this:

"I'll cut spending and pork to balance the budget, enforce our laws to stop illegal immigration, eliminate the death tax and promote ethanol, and I'll work to protect life and support conservative judges."

In principal, I would be with Ricketts on what he is planning to do. Balance the budget? I'm all for it. Enforce our laws to stop illegal immigration? It's a pretty complex issue, but I'll say I'm for that as well. Hell, I even went to his website and agreed with almost all of his immigration proposals. One thing though, how exactly is Pete Ricketts going to "enforce our laws to stop illegal immigration?" Is he going to patrol the border himself? I'm sure that it was probably just a bad choice of words, but as a senator I don't think he'll have too much time to be out protecting our borders personally. Promote ethanol? Sounds good to me. So, that's three out of six. What about the other three? Well, that's where Pete tends to get a little misleading and where we start to disagree.

So, Ricketts wants to "eliminate the death tax." Let's be clear, there is no such thing as a death tax. This is republican code for the estate tax. In one spot, "Tax Squeeze," Ricketts claims "farm families struggle with... the unfair death tax." Ricketts is either misinformed or lying. Either way the ads are misleading. How? Well, eliminating the estate tax would not really help our farmers. I can tell you who it would help though, and that's rich families. Really rich families, like say, the family of the former C.O.O. and current board of directors member for Ameritrade. You know, families like the Ricketts.

You see, guys like Ricketts are selling this idea that the estate tax is making families lose their farms or small businesses when the head of the family dies. This could not be more false. In fact, Iowa State University Economist Neil Harl has searched extensively for, but never found, a farm lost to the estate tax. Even so, the estate tax could still harm the families financially, right? Doubtfully, since according to New York Times Writer and Pulitzer Prize Winner David Cay Johnston only 2% of Americans will owe estate taxes. What's more, Johnston goes on to say this:

"Yet tax return data show that very few farmers pay estate taxes. Only 6,216 taxable estates in 1999 included any agricultural land and equipment, the I.R.S. report shows. The average value of these farm assets was $440,000, only about a third of the amount that any married couple could leave untaxed to heirs. What is more, a farm couple can pass $4.1 million untaxed, so long as the heirs continue farming for 10 years."

So, it doesn't really sound like farmers need to be protected now does it? It sounds to be like Ricketts is really being rather self serving in the guise of helping farmers since, according to Johnston, nearly half of the estate tax is paid by the 3,000 or so people who each year leave taxable estates of more than $5 million. How many farmers do you know who are worth more than $5 million? I'm guessing not many. Now, maybe I'm just being cynical, but since according to a December 17 AP Article, TD Waterhouse paid Pete Ricketts' father, Joe Ricketts, $535.9 million in dividends for his share in Ameritrade, that maybe, just maybe, that has something to do with him wanting to abolish the "death tax?" Just a thought.

So, can you see why I say his ads are often misleading? Now, on to Ricketts' pledge to "protect life." Again, I'm all for the idea of protecting life. And if Pete Ricketts wants to dress up in some kind of costume to stop crime and protect innocent people from harm, well, I'm all for that, too. Not because I'm pro-vigilante or anything, but because it would be pretty funny. However, I think we all know that when he says he's for "protecting life" that's really political code for "I'm against abortion rights and stem cell research." If you didn't come to that conclusion on your own, well, he comes closer to spelling it out for in his ad "Priorities." And if you're still not convinced, on his website Ricketts says, "To encourage a culture of life we must... support an end to federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and cloning."

I'm not really going to get too far into this one, except to say a couple of things. First, I think it's easy for rich, white guys to say we should get rid of abortions. I think that it's ludicrous to make that decision for women, when you can't even carry a child yourself. Second, when he was in office, President Clinton said that he wanted to make abortions "safe, legal, and rare." And he did. In fact, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research organization focused on sexual and reproductive health, abortion rates fell about 17.4% during his presidency, or an average decrease of 1.7% per year. Under President Bush, the abortion rate is still going down, but at a much slower rate of about 0.9%. Maybe Ricketts should look into what's causing that instead, and try to fix it. That way, maybe we can get the abortions down to a number that we all want, which is 0. Because even if you ban abortions outright, they're not going to stop until we stop what's causing them to happen in the first place.

Finally, with regards to Ricketts' stance on stem cell research, no matter what Ricketts and others try and tell you, embryonic stem cells do not come from babies, they come from blastocysts. According to the National Institute of Health a blastocyst is "a preimplantation embryo of about 150 cells." That's 150 cells, not a living being. What makes me say that? Well, according to an article from the Stanford Medicine Magazine "until the blastocyst actually implants in the uterus (seven to eight days after conception), it cannot possibly develop into a person." Another interesting fact the article points out is that "in the normal course of human reproduction, about 60 percent of embryos spontaneously abort and are simply flushed in the course of the menstrual cycle." But don't tell Pete Ricketts that last one, because next thing know, he'll be trying to stop women from having their periods, too.

Okay, so that one wasn't really misleading. If he really, truly, honestly believes that his stance on abortions and stem cell research will save lives, I can't really get mad at him about that. But I can disagree. Just like I disagree with Ricketts' pledge to "support conservative judges." Now, that sounds pretty straight forward, right? It may sound straight forward, and actually if he would have left it at that, I probably would have left that comment alone. However, when I went to Pete Ricketts' website, I read this Ricketts quote, referring obviously to conservative judges in general, but the nomination of Samuel Alito in particular:

“I support conservative judicial nominees who understand it is their job to interpret the law, not create it.”

That is what I call a lie. It's a lie because he really wants conservative judges so can push his conservative agenda, plain and simple. So, why can't he say just say that? Instead he has to lie about his motives while simultaneously inferring that all judges who aren't conservative are what the Right likes to call "activist judges." But before I get into why, once again, Ricketts is just espousing inaccurate platitudes rather than facts, I better explain what an activist judge is.

An activist judge is someone who, to paraphrase Mr. Ricketts, creates law, rather than interprets it. According to our Constitution, laws are not to be made by the Judicial Branch, but rather the Legislative Branch (i.e. Congress). Since Congress is made up of elected officials, this was to give us, the people, a voice in creating our laws. This is where terms like "the law of the land" come from. Therefore, according to Yale Law's Paul Gewirtz and Chad Golder:

"Declaring an act of Congress unconstitutional is the boldest thing a judge can do."

"Of course, calling Congressional legislation into question is not necessarily a bad thing. If a law is unconstitutional, the court has a responsibility to strike it down. But a marked pattern of invalidating Congressional laws certainly seems like one reasonable definition of judicial activism."

So using that metric, Gewirtz and Golder set out to rate how "activist" the Supreme Court Justices are by the percentage of times a justice voted to invalidate Congressional Laws. Here are each of the Justices and what their percentages were according to that study:

Thomas 65.63%
Kennedy 64.06%
Scalia 56.25%
Rehnquist 46.88%
O’Connor 46.77%
Souter 42.19%
Stevens 39.34%
Ginsburg 39.06%
Breyer 28.13%

Huh. That's funny. It looks like the more conservative you are, the more activist you are. It' almost THE EXACT OPPOSITE of what Ricketts and his ilk would have you believe. I mean, George H.W. Bush's appointee Clarence Thomas leads the pack with voting to overturn Congressional laws 65.63% of the time. Guess who nominated Justice Stephen Breyer, who has the lowest rating? Why none other that President William Jefferson Clinton. Boy, I sure hope Pete Ricketts reads this study, so he can really start pushing for liberal judges since he really just wants judges who "interpret the law."

What a joke.

Anyhow, that's why I can't stand Pete Ricketts. I hope the last time I see him is after he concedes in the Republican Primary. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening, as according to a recent poll Ricketts is leading his closest challenger, Don Stenberg, by 10 points. Actually, I hope he does win the Republican nomination so that in the general election Ben Nelson (who is enjoying an approval rating of 73%) destroys him. I just don't think I could take a mega-millionaire conservative senator representing our state. We already have one as President, and look at how well that's turned out.