Category Archives: Politics

Green Day – “21st Century Breakdown” and Digressions


There are a few advantages to getting older. One is that you don’t have to be on the cutting edge of everything to be cool. In fact you don’t even have to be cool anymore. Uhh, truth is, you don’t have any choice, nothing you can do can make you cool. Cool! unless you happen to be married to somebody like that. Poor Sweetie.

Anyways, I was bee bopping through Target earlier this week checking out this and that and came to an end cap in the music section. There was a display that said “New Music.” It had Green Day CDs, “21st Century Breakdown.” So I said “cool”, bought it, and have been listening to it the last several days.

It surprised me. I think of Green Day as kind of punkish. Old punkers in their 40’s or so. They look the part. This CD, although it rocks is quite musical, in fact it is kind of “pop” in some tunes. It has 18 tracks and there is quite a variety here. I have listened to the whole thing a half dozen times and I’m not tired of it yet. The cd can rock but then it gets all melodic. I think that it is quite good.

Check out the bands web site here. It has cool stuff, except for the widgets bloggers use on our posts. None of their widgets work at all. Which is par for the course for band web sites.

The cd came out in May so its not like brand new, but I love it.

I give it a 3.5 stars out of 4. Which is good!

Anybody out there a Green Day fan? Tell us about it.

After I wrote this, I checked out the reviews. Turns out this cd is a rock opera in three parts. Imagine that, I had no idea. I don’t listen to lyrics, I cannot understand them anyway. (Drives Sweetie to the brink sometimes, this trait of mine!) The opera is all about how life was hard under George Bush. Ugh, I’m no W fan at all, but He’s gone folks. He is walking his dog in Dallas people. He is even carrying a pooper scooper! He is out of the picture. SO FOR THE LOVE OF PETE CAN’T I JUST LISTEN TO SOME MUSIC without some sort of political message. Ahhhhhhh!!! By the way, as a certified tax payer, and a certified Republican non fan of “W”, I’m willing to spend a little extra so that a former President of the United States of America doesn’t have to scoop his dog’s poop. Please!

Anybody else out there tired of the culture wars? What we can going to do about it? Class? Class?

House Party on C Street

What is going on in Washington these days? Used to be, if a congressman got caught conducting an affair their career was over. Done with, gone. Remember Wilbur Mills, Gary Hart, and others. It was over. We have entered a new era. Mark Sanford has an affair with a woman in Argentina. Goes to see here while leading his staff and his wife to believe that he is out hiking and gets caught by a reporter in an airport returning from Argentina. He admits to the affair on TV.


So the next step is that he resigns his office and seeks forgiveness from his wife right? Wrong. He is “trying to fall in love with his wife again” and He compares himself to King David. King David was a cool guy, I mean he wrote the Psalms right? Oh, but he did some bad stuff, he was an adulterer and a murderer. But he accomplished great things. So now Senator Sanborn tells us that he can stay Senator because King David got to stay king. What is going on here? I think he thinks he is a king is what I think.

Now another Senator, John Ensign of Nevada, another admitted adulterer, who has paid (or more accurately his parents paid) almost $100,000 to the wife of David Hampton, his former chief of staff, is also not going to resign. He sees no reason to do so. What is up with that?


Now comes our own Senator Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma. Who apparently urged Senator Ensign to end the affair and “make the family whole.” In an interview with the Las Vegas Sun, David Hampton says that Senator Coburn urged John Ensign to pay $1.2 million to the Hamptons so they could move out of Nevada to Colorado. (Senator Coburn has denied urging any financial payments to the Hamptons.)

Senator Coburn has further said he is not going to say anything because he, as both a physician and a church deacon, at least some of his discussions with Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., can remain off limits, even to the Senate Ethics Committee. He described those discussions as “privileged.”???

So what is the common denominator between these three Senators, besides huge egos? It turns out that they are all associated with a house in Washinton D.C. whose address is 133 C St. SE. Senators Ensign and Coburn live in the house. Senator Sanford has attended bible studies and meetings there. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State and former Senator from New York, has attended meetings there.

Who runs the house, including the bible studies? It is an organization called “The Family.” The segment below explains further, better than I can.

Sorry about dragging you through all this. This whole affair shows what happens when powerful individuals forget who they are and what they are and deceive themselves and others as to the true nature of Christ and Christianity. These three conservative Christians (Sanford, Ensign, and Coburn) have provided fodder for those who deride Christianity and I resent it.

I find this whole thing incredible and disturbing.

Tulsa Tea Party

A big party going on downtown in the Oilfield Capital of the World. A tea party. I’d never heard of such a thing but when I looked out the window at the crowd my coworkers had to tell me what was going on. Where have I been?

So I had to go check it out at lunch. Lots of signs, lots of nerdy looking people with cameras. A helicopter showed up. The photographers went crazy. I refused to join the crowd wasting electrons on a whirlybird a 1000 feet in the air. So I took a picture of this guy taking a picture. He has a lot better camera than I do. The speaker told everybody to wave at the helicopter, and they did!! Who’d have thought a bunch of free thinkers could be led so easily. Kind of worries me, how about you, you worried?

I don’t know what everybody is all bent out of shape about but the speaker kept on talking about taking back our nation, we are a nation of Christians…, yadayadayada badababadababa blah blah blah… No disrespect intended. I hate all political speeches. But I love politics, go figure. I was more into people watching. Then I switched to signs.

Its like everybody was just milling around waiting for something to happen. A couple coworkers came by and chatted. While we were talking every once in a while the crowd would cheer and clap and my friends would clap also. I asked them “Why you clapping. What did the guy say.” They said, “We didn’t hear him, we are justing supporting him.” I asked “Who is he?” They didn’t know. I guess I don’t get it.


I got bored. Time to get a hamburger!

Jackman’s American Pale Ale

I have to tell you, I was so inspired when I saw President Obama sipping on a brew. How long has it been? When did we last have a beer drining president? W? nah, when he was younger. Bill, no don’t think so, W’s Dad?, no don’t think so either, Ron, no he supposedly didn’t drink very much. Jimmy? nope, (his brother did though). To make a long story short, based on my intensive research ( I ran two Google searches), Obama may be the first beer drinking president.

The Presidents who were not teetotalers, drank the hard stuff, bourbon and coke (Lyndon Johnson), Gin and Tonic (Gerald Ford), Scotch and Brandy (Franklin Roosevelt), and so on.

You know, I’m wondering, doesn’t it seem like teetotalers make lousy Presidents? Maybe not, but? Or maybe the drinkers make lousy Presidents?

No beer drinkers amongst them, as far as I could tell, nor effete wine sippers.

My favorite presidential drinking story is about Abraham Lincoln concerning General Ulysses S. Grant who supposedly drank prodigous amounts of whiskey. Somebody ratted him out and wanted to know what Lincoln was going to do about it. Honest Abe said that he wanted to find out what kind of whiskey it was so he could send a barrel of it to each of his other generals.

Sorry, I’m way off topic, I was talking about being inspired by the Commander in Chief. So I took advantage of the “pick 6” program at my local liquor store. You can buy 6 different beers individually and get a discount. This way, you can try unknown beers without buying a whole six pack. So I went and picked six different India Pale Ales (“IPAs”). IPA’s are pretty bitter and have a great aroma. They use lots of hops and they are my favorite kind of beer.

The first one up is Left Hand Brewing Company’s Jackman’s American Pale Ale. It was a definite “OK” beer. It was pretty smooth and I enjoyed drinking it but it just didn’t have that “bite” that left me wanting more.

A good solid 2.5 stars out of 4. Its ok, but there are better beers out there.

Natural Gas, Nuclear Energy, Nick’s Law and What Else?

I had a whirlwind day last Thursday.

First I drove from Tulsa down to Oklahoma City for a meeting of Natural Gas and Energy Association of Oklahoma. They had the meeting at the Oklahoma History Center near the State Capital.

You could really tell that the price of natural gas is down. Not many people showed up. March prices for Oklahoma gas could be down in the $2.70 per million btu range. That is about 1/3 of last summer’s prices, and its winter. Doesn’t look good for the rest of the year. Also, the speaker was going to talk about Nuclear Energy in Oklahoma. To a bunch of gas folks?

Some people have told me that energy companies rig the prices. I tell them that the energy companies are pretty piss poor at it.

The Speaker was State Represenative Scott Martin of Norman. He is sponsoring a bill to facilitate nuclear power plants in Oklahoma. I think it is a good idea. That is for another post.

I kept thinking Scott Martin, Scott Martin . . . Seemed like he was involved in the Nick’s Law controversy going on in Oklahoma. He is a Republican . . . Some Republicans’ have suggested that Oklahoman’s with autism and their families maybe need to move to some other state. That kind of bothers me. Maybe the politicians need to move instead.

Anyway I got home and googled Rep Martin and was very pleasantly surprised. According to this Rep Martin was one of only four Republicans who stood up to their leadership to try and bring Nick’s law to the floor last year. So, I think that he is a good guy. I wished I had talked to him, but he had to go to a hearing, busy, buys, busy.

Speaking as a Republican, I have been wondering for some time now what they bring to the table, I mean, if you are not a big contributor looking for special favors in return for contributions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to turn Democrat on anybody. But still I’m wondering.

I had other things to do so I didn’t go through the Oklahoma History Center. I have done it before and I really recommend seeing it if you hadn’t before.

I did go through the grounds though. Lots of oil and gas stuff there.

Drilling rigs of various vintages. Look at the sky, you wonder why I didn’t want to stay inside?

A pumpjack, an older model. For pumping oil.

There was a geocache on the grounds. I’m sorry to report that I didn’t find it.

Now, a boring blast from the past. I used to live close to the Capital in my pre-Sweetie days in an old neighborhood. So I went over there to take a look.

I loved this house. I signed a 1 year lease and left before the lease was up. Everything that wasn’t nailed down was disappearing. I even caught a fine young coed from that great Methodist school, Oklahoma City University, stealing bricks from the back yard. She said she didn’t realize that they belonged to anybody. She offered to put them back where she got them. Boy, that was nice of her.

I then left the city and headed west, to western Oklahoma. To check on some projects I helped put together commercially. In particular a couple of compressor stations.

Here is what one looks like. Isn’t it a beauty? Ok, time to quit.

Barack Obama

One of the blogs I follow is “From Where I Sit” by Michael S. Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson publishing. He seems like he is act pretty well put together and has a sense a perspective on things that I appreciate.

His post today is entitled “My Four Commitments to Barack Obama.”

I’ve decided to adopt those personally. I’m tired of two years of squabbling and fighting. The country has some problems to solve and we need to get together and go about solving them together.

Counterpoint

I looked and looked for something funny from Republicans about Democrats. I couldn’t find it. That might be a bad sign for Republicans today.

The Tulsa World had a nicely reasoned opinion piece by one of my favorite columnists, Paul Greenberg. I couldn’t find it on the World site but I found it posted on the web.

Paul Greenberg Column

I love watching the election returns. So I’ll be eating popcorn and watching the returns tonight.

Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican

I was surfin’ the other night when I saw a poster. I googled the words on the poster and got a gazillion hits for t shirts and such but there was a post from a blog. I followed it and burst out laughing. I mightily annoyed Sweetie who is under a tight deadline for an article for our church magazine. So I decided to share it with everybody.

Now, don’t anybody get excited and start throwing things. I just thought it was funny. I looked for a counterpoint just to provide equal time but I think Republican’s have lost their sense of humor. (Full disclosure, I am a registered Republican,) I looked and looked and there are lots of posts but they are all foaming at the mouth. If anybody can find a funny “Friends don’t let friends vote democrat” entry let me know and I’ll add the link. I’m all for fairness and balance as long as they are opinions I don’t oppose.

I don’t know who the heck I’m voting for Tuesday!

fluid thinking: friends don’t let friends vote republican