Pete for America

Something Really New

2006-11-21T11:04:00.000-05:00

Look who's back!

2006-09-21T21:39:00.000-04:00

Loyal readers, I have returned!

For those checking the site everyday for the past 4 months, I owe each and every one of you an apology. At the very least, I owed you a goodbye.

However, having taken a cue from our glorious leader, George Walker Bush, I will only say that "mistakes have been made", and its time to "stay the course".

Was that a pained analogy? A strained attempt to draw a parallel between our debacle in Iraq and my inexplicable lack of posts for over 120 days?

Absolutely.

So what have been doing since mid May?

I'm not really sure. I fled the country, but only for two weeks. I had a great time in Greece and Turkey, but particularly Turkey.

This Turkey.

They love giant flags there. Almost as much as a Rochester area Perkins Diner loves the 'ole Red, White and Blue

Anyway, I also learned that this is what the foreigners think of Brooklyn.

Interestingly, I think this is what my maternal grandfather (local icon, Stillwater, NY) thought of Brooklyn as well.

Thats all for now. Its good to be back.

We call it "life"

2006-05-18T22:10:00.000-04:00

I tend not to put much stock in conspiracy theories these days. I believe that aliens exist somewhere, but also think that it probably was a weather balloon that crashed in Roswell. My comment the other day about JFK's assassination notwithstanding, I don't really believe there was a conspiracy to kill him. I think its generally impossible for large groups of people to keep secrets, and either one of those incidents is too big to cover up for 50 years or so.

On the other hand, one conspiracy I do believe in is the efforts of the oil companies to convince people that global warming is either a farce or somehow beneficial. You see, they all got together and set up a "non-profit think tank" to explore global warming and other types of pollution. The only thing is, think tanks that explore scientific issues typically rely on science. Well, not when the think tank is called the Competitive Enterprise Institute. To find out more about this group, click here. . (note: its all pretty boring, and not the purpose of this post)

The point of it is that the Competitive Enterprise Institute has been losing the battle of ideas. Apparently, after decades of struggling, something called facts is finally beating fiction. There's an estimated 11 people left in the United States who believe that "the jury's out" on global warming. Unfortunately, those 11 people include both the President, the Vice President, and Michael Crichton.

So the CEI has decided its time for a counter-offensive. Carbon Dioxide has been getting a bad rap for too long, so the CEI's taking to airwaves. And if you don't audibly laugh when you see these ridiculous advertisements, well, then you have a bad sense of humor. The one on the left is pure unintentional comic genius, and the right one is only steps behind it.

What does this say about me?

2006-05-17T21:04:00.000-04:00

At Pete For America, we try to maintain a fairly high level of discourse. Perhaps this explains why the site rarely gets more than 30 visitors on any given day. Certainly, we've never lowered ourselves to poop or urine discussions -- until today.

I've always been uncomfortable in public restrooms, especially when another man and I approach the urinals at the same time. Also, I get psyched out when I'm in a stall and some else approaches the adjacent urinal.

Its not a matter of "stage fright", a condition that causes some strange breeds of men to lose the ability to urinate around others. I've only met a few men who suffer from this affliction, and believe me, they are to be pitied.

No, my difficulty is that I have never failed to finish peeing faster than the man beside me. I first noticed it when I was somewhere around 11 years old. From that age until I was more or less fully grown at 18 were my years of denial. I figured that I took less time peeing because I was smaller than the average man. As that became less true (I grew alot towards the end of high school), I developed two alternative theories. One was my belief in some strange manhood measure that I was unaware of. The longer a man stands at a urinal, the greater a man he is. Its some sort of strangely literal "pissing" contest. The other theory is that other men have far greater post-urination dripping problems than me, and consequently must spend more time getting every last drop out.

By the time I entered college, I realized that all three of my high school theories were fatally flawed. Everytime I've entered a bathroom alongside another man, and I seize the urinal first (leaving him with stall), I can hear him peeing far after I've stopped. I'm talking about 5 to 15 seconds here, its not a photo finish or anything.

Acknowledging this, I developed another hypothesis to explain why I've never been able to outpee another man. During my college years, I claimed I simply had a wider urethra than other men. It may sound silly, but it could be true. Our bodies have weird idiosynchracies, if that kid from 3rd grade could be double jointed all over his body, then I could have a wide urethra.

I still have some faith in the wide urethra theory, but I'm losing it pretty quickly. Today marked an epiphany of sorts. I probably became truly self aware for the first time. Upon leaving the bathroom this morning at work, I realized that the problem probably lies with my mental approach to urination, and how it differs from most guys. I've been friends with about a hundred guys in my life, and through these relationships, I've realized that men are either slightly masochistic regarding peeing or they're entirely unsensitive towards their bladders. Most guys seem to feel that either they don't have to piss at all, or they have to go so badly that they won't make it for another 10 minutes.

I can always make it another 10 minutes. If the opportunity arises (either a needed or natural break in conversation, a break in a television show or sporting event, boredom's set in at work, etc.), I go to the bathroom. I don't think twice about it, if I have the slightest urge to pee, I relieve myself. Most guys don't take this approach. They wait until the last possible moment before their bladder explodes, because really, its such a hassle to walk down a hall and take a piss.

So there you have it! I've come clean. I have very little tolerance for bladder discomfort. Its not that I can't suffer through it, I did make quite famously make it 6 hours without peeing from Columbus, Ohio to Terra Haute, Indiana a few years back. Its not that I'm worried about peeing my pants, I can't actually recall any incident in my life where I've wet myself. The truth it, unlike most guys, I choose not to suffer through urinary discomfort.

Does this make me less of a man? Probably. Does this example illustrate some greater truth about my personality? I'm sure. Do I enjoy the literary technique of asking myself questions and then answering them? Absolutely!

Regardless, now that I've come clean about my peeing habits, I feel a tremendous amount of personal relief and liberation. Or, that may be because I've taken 3 pees during the course of this weird mini-essay.

You know how they say history works in cycles?

2006-05-16T21:28:00.000-04:00

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater by a wide margin to win the Presidency for the first time (having been elected VP and then elevated to the high office when the military industrial complex, the Cubans, the Mob, and the Klan all got together and conspired to kill JFK). Because of the size and scope of the victory, many people thought the election of 1964 would usher in an era of permanent liberal Democratic rule. LBJ's win gave Democrats 4 out of the last 5 Presidency's, and was accompanied by commanding majorities in both the House and the Senate. While the country was engaged in a protracted foreign war against an elusive enemy and was struggling with growing budget deficits, things still looked good for the ruling party.

In two years, the Democrats suffered serious losses in the midterm elections. By 1968 Johnson's ambitious plans (the Great Society) for reshaping America lay in tatters right next to the grand New Deal coalition (gone because of black civil rights) assembled by party icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His heir apparent, Hubert Humphrey, lost the election of 1968 to a former Vice President (Dick Nixon) who had rehabilitated his image and promised to bring responsibility back to Washington and sanity back to foreign policy. For the next 40 years, conservatism, not liberalism, is the dominant ideology in the United States.

Flash forward 40 years ----

In 2004, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry by a relatively comfortable margin to capture the Presidency for a second term. Because GWB's win was accompanied by big gains in the House and Senate (along with a majority of governorships and statehouses nationwide), many people thought the election of 2004 would usher in an era of permanent conservative Repubican rule. Bush's win gave Republicans 5 of the last 7 Presidency's. While the country was engaged in a protracted foreign war against an elusive enemy and was struggling with growing budget deficits, things still looked good for the ruling party.

In two years time, the Republicans suffer serious losses in the midterm elections. By 2008 Bush's ambitious plans for reshaping society (through the privatization of the social safety net) for reshaping America will lay in tatters next to the grand business/law and order/evangelical coalition (gone because of immigration issues) assembled by party icon Ronald Reagan. Bush's heir apparent (still undetermined, but probably either John McCain or George Allen), loses the election of 2008 to a former Vice President (Al Gore) who successfully rehabilitates his image and promises to bring responsibility back to Washington and sanity back to foreign policy. Gore's victory doesn't restore liberalism to its mid-60's excesses, but at the very least restores ideological balance to the America political equation.

Think its impossible? Its far more probable than anyone would have imagined one year ago. The Republican party is already beginning to disintegrate; overcome by arrogance, irresponsibility, and mismanagement. Plus, the key player in all of this; Al Gore, is beginning what would be the most remarkable political comeback since the days of Nixon.

Given the disastrous results of 6 years of unfettered Republican rule, the days of Clinton's rule is looking quite positively nostalgic. His appearance on SNL the other day was fairly funny, particularly because it was coming from one of the least comically charming politicians of the modern era.

He's also got a whole lot of credibility on a number of hot button issues, including Iraq and the environment. Also, now that they have a realistic shot of taking the White House, there's no way in hell the Democrats want to nominate Hillary. The problem is, there's no legitimate alternative. Mark Warner, Evan Bayh, John Edwards, John Kerry, etc. can't stand up to the Clinton juggernaut. Realistically speaking, only Al Gore has the name recognition and credibility among Democrats to successfully stand up against Hillary. If he decides to run, and there's still no serious indication that he will, he'll quickly emerge as the pre-eminent challenger to Senator Clinton.

Don't take my word for it, real experts are starting to say the same.

A Planned Descent into the Heart of Darkness

2006-05-15T20:20:00.000-04:00

I've always had a hard time being a cultural critic. Since my toddler days, I've been accepting of anything American pop culture (in all of its mindless glory) has thrown at me.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I can recognize absolute crap as much as the next guy. I can tell that somethings bad, but odds are, I'm still going to like it. For example, some people (Terence) believe that "Dude, Where's my Car" is actually a good movie, while I know that its pure trashy drivel. If I ever gave it a chance though, I'm positive I'd enjoy the viewing experience.

I can be critical of some things. For example, I dislike nearly all art. I like to think I can decide to dislike a book, but the reality is that I struggle to do even that. Last year when I was taking a graduate history class, we'd read a book a week and then summarize/analyze it for the class. I generally liked everything I read, so much so that a smarmy PhD student called me the Jack Garner of historical criticism. It took some investigation after class before I found out that he's the Democrat and Chronicle's resident movie "critic", except he fails to actually be critical of anything.

Musically speaking, I'm entirely aware of whats good and not, but like many people, I don't care nearly as much as I should. Sure, LFO was one of the worst things to happen to pop music (you remember, they sang that song that went "I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch, Chinese food makes me sick, and I think its fly when girls stop by for the summer, for the summer". Still, given the wide variety of music on the market, and its distinctiveness, I've found that I can actually disdain certain musicians. For example, Nickelback. I'd rather have a nosebleed for 6 consecutive days than go to a Nickelback concert.

One thing I've been unable grow any animosity towards is the visual mediums of television and cinema. I can watch anything on TV, and find it interesting enough to keep my attention. I'm able to watch hours upon hours of infomercials, TV judges, crappy talk shows, formulaic dramas and blase sitcoms. I'm willing to say that anything made in the 1990's on television would occupy my attention, and I'd enjoy watching it in a weird sort of way.

The thing is, I want to be a cultural snob. I want to be able to discuss a movie and have my words drip with hatred against it. I want to be able to tell the story of how I walked out of a movie mid-scene because it was so bad. I want to hate the latest Tom Wolfe book, just like the next guy. I'm worried that as I get older, I'll lose the ability to discern whats good and whats actually really bad, but I still enjoy it. I'm terrified that one day, I'm going to wake up at the age of 37 and genuinely enjoy Hugh Grant or The Rock films. Even worse, I won't know that they're bad anymore. I'm beginning to fear that if I can't really dislike anything, will I'll become unable to do the opposite (actually enjoy anything).

So, I'm embarking on a quest to overwhelm myself with cinematic crap. Over the next several weeks, I'm going to begin to rent movies that society has universally deemed atrocious. Some I've seen, and secretly enjoyed. Others I've avoided seeing, because I'd know I'd secretly enjoy them. Nevertheless, I'm hoping that by only viewing bad movies, I'll reach a point where I can't take it anymore. After each film, I'm going to write a review, and hopefully by the time I get to Spice World, I'll be filled with venom.

Here's my list so far:

Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid
Battlefield Earth
Gigli
Dude, Where's my car
Freddy Got Fingered
Deuce Bigalo: European Gigalow
Spice World

Also, please note that all the nonsense I wrote above is just that, nonsense. I'm not worried at all about my absence of cinematic disdain. In fact, I enjoy it. This is more of an excuse to watch really bad movies, and then write lengthy online reviews about them.

Big News: My near death!

2006-05-10T22:40:00.000-04:00

One day, I'm going to shock whatever unfortunate girl that marries me/moves in with me with my domestic skills. Not to be a braggart, but I'm pretty awesome at nearly everything. My parents always shared the household chores, and eventually decided (in their generosity) to extend that sharing to all of their kids. So, after a few years of this, I'm pretty proficient at most of the things middle class families need to do to keep up middle class appearances. I'm certainly better at maintaining a household than I am at working on anything ranging from a DVD player in need of programming to a car in need of a new fanbelt.

Unfortunately, while I was raised with good housekeeping abilities, my parents didn't really emphasize the necessity of constant household tidiness. Actually, they tried to, but I was far too busy playing video games or making messes to take heed of their instructions. Unlike my faithful co-pilot Dan, I have trouble keeping things orderly and consistently clean.

Consequently, when I finally decide its time for a major household cleaning, its about a three day long event. With springtime upon us and my roommate away for a few days, I figured now is as good a time as any.

I started with the kitchen, and then moved to the living room. After day one, I felt like I was making some serious progress, and the apartment looked better for it.

Day two hasn't gone quite so well. I planned on cleaning both the bathroom and my bedroom, but nearly ended my life with the former.

You see, while they did a hell of a job teaching me how to vacuum or properly clean a stove top, my parents never trusted their offspring with the important task of cleaning the bathroom. My mom clung to it like it was her youngest child, perhaps worried that I wouldn't clean the interior of the toilet bowl thorougly enough. More likely, she was worried I'd use the toilet brush to clean the handles on the sink.

When I was a janitor for a summer, I cleaned approximately 150 toilets, so I became a pro at that. Cleaning a bathroom sink is basically the same as any countertop. The same is true for the floor. That leaves us with the bathtub.

I consider myself an intelligent young man. I did well on my SAT's, went to a good college, bullshitted my way into a job I had no business applying for, etc. But after tonight, I'm beginning to have some serious self-doubt.

I started by wetting the tub, and then sprinkling AJAX all over the place. I waited a few minutes and then went in and scrubbed. Satisfied, I washed it all away, ready to see a gleaming white tub once again.

It wasn't white, it barely looked cleaner than before. Not to be discouraged, I rifled through the cleaning supplies and found some ammonia. The bottle says its good at cleaning bathtubs, so I let it rip. I filled up a bucket with some water, and then threw a good bit of ammonia in. I grabbed the bucket and hopped in the tub. Again, I scrubbed away. After a few minutes, I realized this was accomplishing nothing. So I dumped the ammonia out all over the tub, and thoroughly rinsed the bathtub out.

I was multitasking this whole time, and went to go throw my clothes in the dryer. There, I spotted some bleach on a counter. Deciding that bleach turns anything white, I grabbed the bottle and went back upstairs to finish the job.

Now, I'm no fool, I know that mixing ammonia and bleach is like taking a gun to your head. We all saw the same videos in elementary school, there's no need to lecture here. With this in mind, I gave the tub one last rinsing.

I filled the bucket up with water again, and then poured the bleach in. Once more, I hopped in the tub and got scrubbing. I was probably scrubbing for about 30 seconds when I realized I felt like I was sniffing super glue. I was all lightheaded and out of it. I stumbled out of the tub and out of the bathroom. I went to the couch and flopped down, the world spinning around me. I decided that if I was going to die an early death, this was as good a way to go as any. I closed my eyes and prepared myself to meet my maker.

About 2 seconds later, I realized I was fine and got up to take care of the poisonous gas cloud in the bathroom. After reviewing the situation, I realized I never cleaned out the bucket, and thats where the mixing happened.

Apparently, mixing ammonia and bleach is about as dangerous as sarin gas. I mean, there was only a bit of diluted ammonia in the bucket, and the mixture was further diluted by about a gallon of water. Nevertheless, I nearly killed myself tonight. If were a terrorist, I'd look into this. They may be complicating things too much with all of this anthrax, VX gas, and dirty bomb nonsense.

Anyway, there's a silver lining to the cloud of death that literally descended upon me tonight. While my bathtub may still be unpleasantly off-white, the whole ordeal helped me overcome a recent bout of writers block. The lesson is that if you really need something to write about, accidental near-death with get you there, with only a moderate headache afterwards.

Now thats a Congressman

2006-05-04T20:34:00.000-04:00

Your name is John Sweeney. You're a fourth term Republican congressman from an upstate New York district. You were a state labor secretary for Governor Pataki, and outside of your first run for Congress, you've won re-election by fairly comfortable margins. You're married, you've got a couple of kids, and you're generally pretty content. Unfortunately, your district is slowly yet steadily trending Democratic, particularly given President Bush's recent troubles. For the first time in your political career, you've got a well financed, competent opponent who has a pretty solid shot of knocking you off in November.

So, what do you do?

PARTY!!!!

Having been a heavy drinker since your cocaine snorting high school days, you head to watering hole in Schenectady with a couple buddies. You have a few drinks, somewhere between 10 and 12, and you decide that you'll hit on the busty female bartender until she threatens to hit you or call the cops. After she pulls out a 3 iron, you and your 50 year old pals decide to drink and drive for a few blocks until you hit Union College. There, you and your friends stumble (and I mean stumble) upon a Alpha Delta Phi fraternity party.

You hit on a few co-eds, play some beer pong with the guys, and call it a night. You think all is well until a few days later, when pictures of the evening show up in the campus newspaper and then local Times Union.

And, here they are:

Apparently he's a Yankees fan. Well great, that should win him re-election!

I really like this one, because it appears that the dude behind his left shoulder is doing a J.

Yes folks, this is my hometown congressman. Vote Sweeney in 2006!

All the News That's Fit for a Stereotype

2006-05-03T21:08:00.000-04:00

As any student of journalism will tell you, the newspaper industry seems to be dying a long, slow, and extremely public death. Up until about 50 years ago, every two-bit city had several newspapers, and strong majorities of Americans read one paper or another every day of the week. Since then, most cities have slowly moved towards an arrangment whereby there's one "corporate" daily and one "alternative" weekly. Think Albany with the Times Union and Metroland, or Rochester with the Democrat and Chronicle and the City. People have steadily abandoned written news for television, radio, internet, or no news at all.

While all things have to come to an end eventually (think of the telegraph), the eventual death of the newspaper industry will be catastrophic for the field of journalism. Television isn't a medium suited towards meticulously researched and patiently developed journalism. The internet doesn't seem to generate enough revenue to employ the large staffs necessary for a large news gathering effort. The newspaper industry has been hammered by large staff lay-offs in recent months and years, and undoubtedly this will end up harming the quality of investigation and reporting in the United States.

New York City seems to be a slightly different animal than other newspaper markets. While circulation has generally declined in the city, it hasn't done so nearly as sharply as elsewhere. Why, you ask?

There's probably a couple different reasons. I'm convinced that competition is a good thing for the industry, and since New York City is so large, it can support a competitive and vibrant newspaper culture. It also has the subways, which continue to be a godsend for the papers. Its a captive audience that takes at least a half an hour to get to work each morning, and then again in the afternoon. The subways are (thankfully) a cell phone free zone, and unless you're a brash high school student looking to impress that girl from government class, its not really the place to converse with other riders.

Which brings me to the point of this post (that preface grew far longer than I orginally intended). By my count, New York City has 7 major newspapers worth analyzing. Since one of my favorite subway games is sketching small biographies of every person near me on the train (another being trying to figure out what book cute girls are reading), I've thought long and hard about what each of the local papers means about the person reading them. Keep in mind, these are admittedly stereotypes, and like most generalizations, they can be applied in all cases, without exception.

If you're reading _____ then I can tell you this about yourself.....

The New York Times - The Times is "America's paper of record" and thus America's finest paper, but if you're reading it on the subway, you're telling the other passengers a couple things about yourself. Mainly, you've a slightly pretentious prick. You choose to read an oversized paper not meant for subway consumption mainly because you want to prove that you're an educated, liberal and urbane elite. You enjoy gourmet coffee, you shop at Whole Foods, and you weekend in in the Hudson Valley. You vote consistently Democratic, and believe that Maureen Dowd always seems to say exactly what you were thinking. You probably voted for Bloomberg though, because although you foam at the mouth whenever you see President Bush on television, you consider yourself too nuanced and sophiscated to always adhere to the party line. I mean, gosh, its not like you read the Daily News or something.

The Wall Street Journal - Either you're an actual Wall Street fat cat type (and you need to read the WSJ because its enormously influential on the stock exchange) or you're a commuter from New Jersey or Long Island who works in Midtown. You've got a modest investment in the market, but not so much so that you're constantly reworking your portfolio. You read the Journal because of the status it conveys. People respect a man reading the Journal, and you know that. You typically vote Republican, but have soured on President Bush in the past year. You think Rick Lazio would have made a hell of a Senator, and you're probably supporting William Weld for Governor.

The Daily News - You read New York City's establishment tabloid. Odds are, you've voted Democratic your entire adult life. You drink Budweiser, and make less money than someone reading the Times or Journal. You like the sports coverage if you're a guy, and the gossip section if you're a woman. You almost certainly live in one of the outer boroughs. You like the Jets nearly as much as the Giants, and have always had a soft spot for the Mets. You get choked up whenever you hear of a cops death in the line of duty, and you were probably born within the 5 boroughs.

The New York Post - Either you're from Staten Island or are someone who recently moved to New York City. You read the trashiest New York tabloid, and are damn proud of it. You don't follow auto racing, but you're NYC's rough equivalent to a Nascar Dad or whatever the womans equivalent is. You hate Hillary Clinton more than anything else, and you're probably Catholic. You don't notice the conservative bent to the coverage, and if it was pointed out to you, you'd argue that its just balancing out the liberal bias.

AM New York/Metro - You read one of the two free newsdailies passed out at nearly every subways stop. You're barely not worth writing about, but I'll try anyway. You take the paper not because you want to read the news, but because someone handed you something. While you realize the paper takes about 6 minutes to read cover to cover, you prolong the process by trying your hand at soduku or the simplistic crossword puzzle. Politically, you're apathetic. You're probably under the age of 40, and thus don't have an attachment to one of the more well established papers.

Village Voice - Oh, you are soooo hipster, and you're proving it so well. People look at you on the train, they see your "Save the Whales" or "Save Darfur" button, and they either admire or loathe you. Either way, you don't care. You usually ride your bike, but because it might rain today, you're on the train. If you're a guy, 75% chance you've got a trendy beard or shaggy hair. If you're a girl, there's a 75% chance you're wearing green pants and a zip up black hooded sweatshirt. Either way, there's a 95% chance you're as white as Larry Bird.

Of course, you've got other papers, most notably the neighborhood ones that come out once a week. Unfortunately, all you can tell by those is that someone's trying to learn more about their neighborhood or they know the guy whose dog got electrocuted on 4th Ave last week and want to read about it in the papers.

So you're probably asking yourself, what does Pete read? I usually listen to the iPod and read a book. If I'm reading a paper though, its nearly always the New York Times.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

2006-05-01T22:26:00.000-04:00

Hey, we all make mistakes… like the time I knocked Pete’s toothbrush into the toilet, or the time Pete intentionally ironed wrinkles in his shirt for a theme party. I made a mistake a few weeks ago, and it’s time to fess up.

It turns out that “In Memory of Sal’s New York Pizzeria” had a few inaccuracies. Namely, Sal's isn't closed – and according to an official spokesman, they never were. Ethan McKenney, our PFA correspondent embedded in Rochester, broke the news two days after the piece via electronic correspondence. “Dude, Sal’s is definitely open,” he wrote, “I just bought crack from there three days ago and I’m seventy percent sure they were selling pizza as well.”

I looked into the matter immediately. A quick phone call to Sal’s New York Pizzeria (585-244-4848) revealed that they were indeed open, and according to the mystery man on the line, they hadn’t even been temporarily closed.

A dizzying cocktail of emotions swirled through my brain. First, elation; Sal’s is open! Second, concern; my story… all wrong! I’m a journalistic fraud, a poor man’s Jayson Blair! The blogosphere will eat me alive. Lastly, confusion; despite the assurances via phone call, I still don’t believe they were open all that time.

I don’t know what happened to create such confusion, and I suppose I never will. The good news is that you can still get a super-thin slice of heaven whenever you’re in Rochester. So eat at Sal’s and be merry – and forget the fact that my only real entry has been a complete lie.

Time for a Report

2006-05-01T08:01:00.000-04:00

Something I don't like: Celebrity couple nicknames like Brangelina, Bennifer, or TomKat (although that TomKat one is kind of clever)

Something I do like: Steven Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner. The video has two parts, the first section here and the shorter second half (so it should be called the last third I guess) here.

Its kind of long, so maybe its not something you can watch at work, but its a good time nevertheless. They stopped cutting to President Bush after a while though, probably because he had the "I'm annoyed so I look like I'm sucking a lemon" face on.

My favorite lines were "I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least, and by these standards, we've set up a fabulous government in Iraq.", the one directed at John McCain "Its so wonderful to see you come back to the Republican fold. I've actually got a summer house in South Carolina, look me up when you speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light, sir." and in reference to Jesse Jackson "He's gonna say what he wants at the pace he wants, its like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is."

Anyway, I liked it, and maybe you will too...

Someone has to be the first

2006-04-26T23:03:00.000-04:00

There are some topics that will always be in dispute. For example, I'd argue that Uncle Jesse was a better character when his hair was long and his last name was Cochran. You might state that he he looked better with short hair, and the change to Kasapolous allowed them to bring the Greek angle into Full House. As another example, you might claim Nirvana's Nevermind was the greatest rock album of the 90's, while I'd argue just as strongly that Pearl Jam's Ten sets the standard for the era. Speaking of which, is there anything more exciting than hearing rave reviews for a yet to be released Pearl Jam album? I've got visions of Vs. dancing in my head every night.

As a more serious example, many Pete for America readers would oppose Hillary Clinton's bid for the Presidency, while I'm 100% behind it. Allow me to explain myself.

I find it very interesting that Democrats and Republicans are equally terrified at the prospect of Hillary getting the nomination. This isn't like late 2003 when Karl Rove was practically begging the Democrats to nominate Howard Dean. Instead, we're scared to death that she'll win and thus lack electability, and they're frightened that the Democrats will have a woman candidate who can't be outflanked on national security and is married to the greatest natural politician of the 20th century. I get the feeling that after taking it on the chin for two straight elections, Democrats are so gun-shy that they're going to end up nominating a red white and blue sock puppet just because its patriotic and non-controversial. Hillary's got a ton of strengths, and people just need to get over their fear of her name and the fact that she's an ambitious woman,

She's shown she can raise a ton of money, and its going to take a truckloads of the stuff to win the Presidency. She's been so calculating during her six years in the Senate that it will be almost impossible for the Republicans to pin her down as an terrorist coddling softy. She's managed to win over a remarkable amount of upstate New Yorkers, who aren't really all that different from Wisconsiners or Virginians. She's still liberal, and everyone knows that, but she's such a clever and conniving politician that her public record since entering the Senate makes her look like a conservative Democrat.

But most importantly, she's the perfect person to bring out the crazies in the Republican party. She's at her most popular when she's being picked on. If she gets the nomination, you'll see some of the most vile and vitriolic things ever said about a person in the public sphere. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the rest of them will literally be foaming at the mouth over her candidacy. There's nothing the mainstream Republican party will be able to do to contain its lunatic fringe, and that will play into the Democrats hands like nobody's business.

Also, a Hillary nomination means we get to experience Bill back on the campaign trail one more time, and there's nothing I want to see more than him pressing the flesh nationwide once again.

Honestly, there's a part of me that believes that no matter who she is, the first female candidate for President will not win. America is a conservative country, and we don't react well to change. The first Catholic to run for President (Al Smith) lost largely because of his Catholicism. The next Catholic to run was JFK, and we all know how that turned out. Reagan never would have won the White House without Goldwater trying the same themes out 16 years earlier. A cokehead never would have won the Presidency if Willie Clinton hadn't admitted to smoking pot 8 years prior. The fact is, it usually takes a little while for Americans to get comfortable with the idea of whatever it is that they're experiencing for the first time. Why not get it over with and put Hillary up for the Presidency. She may not win, but she'll definitely make it alot easier for the next woman to take a crack at it.

Besides, if McCain gets the Republican nomination, its a slam dunk win for the GOP yet again. There's absolutely no one that the Democrants can put up against him and win. Luckily, he's old, and will probably only be able to serve one term, just in time for Obama's ascent to the Presidency.

Lets do a review!

2006-04-24T20:45:00.000-04:00

I've never really been much of a Jay Z fan. Being a white guy with a soft spot for message rap, he never really did much that appealed to me. Songs about fast cars, fast money, and fast women never struck a chord in me. Nevertheless, I always knew he was one of the top rappers in the game, and respected him for that. Regardless of Nas winning their highly publicized battle, Jay Z truly took Biggie's mantle as greatest rapper in New York. Still, I generally prefer Nas, 2Pac, Biggie or any of the NWA rappers for my subway rides.

(Note: This should all be taken with a grain of salt. I'm not really a hip-hop fan, I just like to pretend at times. I'd pick Pearl Jam over 2Pac any day of the week.)

But then I bought Jay Z's Unplugged album, and my musical perspective was altered forever. Of course I'm being a tad over dramatic, but not by much. I've always taken Dan's perspective on live hip-hop, believing that its a polished art form, better off with production and studio development. After listening to Unplugged a few times, I've decided that stripped down hip-hop, just like live rock music, is far superior to anything you'd get off an album.

Jay Z somehow convinced Mary J. Blige and the Roots to join him in the MTV studios, and together they laid down whats quite possibly the best 55 minutes of hip-hop I've ever heard in my life. This album's version of "Takeover" and especially "Song Cry" jumped out at me. The latter is one of the most moving performances I've heard in my young life. So, if you ever want to experience hip-hop in its purest form, Jay Z's Unplugged album is the place to do it.

In honor of Earth Day

2006-04-22T21:52:00.000-04:00

Earth!
Fire!
Wind!
Water!
Heart

Go planet!

With your powers combined, I am Captain Planet

Captain Planet, he's our hero
Gonna take pollution down to zero
He's our power magnified
And he's fighting on the planets side

Captain Planet, he's our hero
Gonna take pollution down to zero
Gonna help him put us under
Bad guys who like to loot and plunder

"You'll pay for this Captain Planet!"

We're the planeteers
You can be one too
Cuase saving our planet is the thing to do
Looting and polluting is not the way
Hear what Captain Planet has to say

THE POWER IS YOURS!

Did anyone know that the Captain Planet theme song is a Phil Collins joint?

The New York Times did a great Captain Planet piece today, you can read it here. (registration required)

My Dog

2006-04-19T22:57:00.000-04:00

When I was three, my crazy uncle Denny gave us a beagle puppy named Rusty. I don't have too many memories of Rusty, but from what my parents tells me, playing with me was one of his favorite things. Unfortunately, his other favorite things were; peeing on the rug, chewing on chairs, socks, my dad's ankle, and trying to fight the neighbors doberman (Rusty usually ended up on the losing side of that matchup).

My parents had never been dog people, so after less than a year, my father pawned him off on a co-worker.

Quick recently deceased grandfather story: While my Dad had owned a dog growing up, my Mom did, for about three years. It was a mutt named Max. One day, when my mom and her sibling were at school, Max disappeared, and was never heard from again. My grandfather said that he went missing at lunchtime, and never came back. Max's body was never found, nor was he ever replaced. About a year and a half ago, we were up at my grandfather's for his birthday. My uncle brought up the subject of Max, and my Mom chimed in by saying "Yeah, I wonder what ever happened to Max?" My grandfather got a little smirk on his face, and blurted out, "Dead! Gunshot wound to the head." Yup, my grandfather shot Max, and disposed of the evidence without ever telling anyone, including my grandmother. Poppy really was so much more fun once senility started to slip in, and all the stories starting slipping out...

Anyway, Rusty was gone, and although the co-worker lived in our town and we had a few reunions with him, he wasn't our dog anymore, and I was heartbroken.

Then when I was 8, we tried again, with a dog we adopted from the Humane Society. His name was Ralphie, and again, I was his favorite. Unfortunately, he had been abused by his previous owner, and neglected for long periods of time. So, he hated to be left alone, and would start destroying the house if left to his own devices for more than 3 or 4 hours. He also hated my Dad, barking and growling at him whenever he came home. After a couple of months, his behavior failed to improve, and he went back to the Humane Society. I can only guess that they ended up putting him down, probably with a gunshot wound to the head.

About two years later, after a great deal of pleading from my brother and I, my parents agreed to give owning a dog one last try. Our pharmacist also bred Golden Retrievers (how small town upstate New York is that?), and she told my Mom that another litter was due. So, on Christmas morning, my Dad went out to get the mail, and came home with a dog. For whatever reason, he was named Tobey, and in the twelve subsequent years, Tobey has been the greatest dog known to man (certainly this man). I could start telling stories, but since this post is growing long, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere, I'm going to hold off.

Nevertheless, Tobey's pretty much the coolest thing on earth, and it saddens me to watch him get old and feeble. Sure, he still perks up when I visit my families house, but after about five minutes, he's in need of a recharge. I guess your dog getting old and dying is a part of the whole growing up process, but its a definite bummer at the same time. Anyway, I mention this not because my dog is actively dying, although I'm pretty sure he's been trying to wander off to find a ditch to fall into for some time now, but because my brother took a picture of Tobey some time ago, and I only found the picture again the other day. It was always my favorite picture of Tobey, and now that I have it again, I'm pretty sure my life has achieved some zenlike completeness.

Isn't he just the coolest dog you've ever seen? Admit it, he's so much better than anything else on the market

Lets get some links

2006-04-17T23:01:00.000-04:00

As part of Pete For America's ongoing efforts to educate its rapidly growing readership, here's the Monday links:

Big News out of Boston - American Men occupied 3 of the top 5, and 5 out of the top 10, spots at the Boston Marathon earlier today. While the winning runner was a Kenyan, the American's depth in the race was the best its been in over 20 years. For those uninitiated into the world of distance running, this is big news, and probably the rough equivalent to the WB catapulting to be the number 2 network in the country.

I went home this weekend, and visited two North Columbia County sites of interest with my buddy Ross. One was the outdoor modern art mecca Art-Omi, which both Ross and I decided was utter crap. I'm not one of those people who dismisses all art that isn't portraits or landscapes, but this was pure rubbish. Most of pieces took little to no ability to construct. I kinda think art should be a skill, not just mangling some metal and letting it rust for a few years. The other site of interest was the home of Jessie Merwin, better known as Ichabod Crane. Its nearly impossible to get to, and you can't really look around (being someone's home and property), but its Kinderhook's claim to fame. And damn it, I'm proud to be a Kinderhooker.

So apparently Angelina's going to give birth in Africa. More specifically, she's going to pop it out in Namibia. This is the biggest event to happen to that country since Mike Nabozny began his tour of duty with the Peace Corps.

I really hope I don't have to get a blackberry for work, and this article kind of explains my reasoning.

And finally, I watched Disturbing Behavior on TBS the other day, and it rekindled my high school crush on Katie Holmes. It also shares some similarities with the whole "My mind's being controlled by Scientologists" look she's got going on these days.

In Memory of Sal's New York Pizzeria

2006-04-16T13:07:00.000-04:00

As part of planning for my one-year anniversary with the lovely Miss Rachel, I stumbled upon some unpleasant news. Sal’s New York Pizzeria – once home to the best New York style pizza in town – is no longer in business. The news was not exactly a shock, but it was certainly disappointing. The pizza was delicious, possibly my favorite in Rochester, but even the most loyal of patrons would acknowledge that the place was a bit… shady. Like Nick Tahou Hots, a visit could sometimes be a story all its own.

Open from 4pm – 4am, the business hours were closely tailored to the local bar scene. This encouraged a motley clientele, matched by equally lively employees. One critic described the guys working there as, “fun in a creepy Italian sort of way”. They smoked behind the counter long after the New York State smoking ban. They played their favorite albums on repeat at obtrusively loud volume. They employed a curious marketing strategy, forgoing the traditional “small, medium, large” size designation for “medium, large, and extra-large”.

Another peculiarity of Sal’s was that it often had more visitors than customers. Someone would come in off the street, engage in conversation with the employees, and leave soon after without having purchased any food. This was enough to make imaginative folks like Pete and I envision a great conspiracy of which we as patrons were loosely associated. To us, Sal’s was “clearly” a front for a small-time drug trade. Like many sheltered middle class college students, the idea that we sat a booth away from such underhanded dealings was very exciting.

Equally appealing, in a campy sort of way, was the interior décor. It had the feel of a Chinese fast food restaurant – neon lights, hard plastic seating, and uninspired decoration dotted across the walls. The furnishings suggested that the owners didn’t really want people eating there, but reluctantly provided the bare amenities for those who insisted on doing so.

To the rear of the establishment was a menacing hallway. A piece of paper was taped to the wall nearby. On it the word “bathroom” was written in black marker with an arrow pointing into the dimly lit passage beyond. Those brave (or desperate) enough to seek out said bathroom were in for an adventure. The hallway lead into what I can only describe as a large maze. It seemed to be much larger than the building itself, which prompted me to believe that the hallway went underground and that the bathroom was in fact located somewhere in South Wedge. The bathroom-seeker would fumble down the dark passageway past condom machines and other assorted rubbish, using additional paper signs for guidance. I don’t remember much about the actual bathroom, although I can say (with relief) that it did have a sink and a soap dispenser.

Although I just learned of the closing this week, I believe it has been out of business for a while now. Pete, Terence, Ethan, and I tried to go there about a month and a half ago, but it wasn’t open. We chalked it up to their peculiar business hours and walked down to Acme Bar & Grill. I drove past it on numerous occasions since to find it closed again. True to character, there was nothing displayed to indicate that they were out of business. Finally, a call to Mark’s Texas Hots next door confirmed my suspicions. Yes, they were closed for good.

And thus a small part of my college experience is no longer. It was a special place for me, for reasons trivial and compelling. A part of me refuses to accept that it is gone. Perhaps the owners are on an extended business trip to Columbia or Thailand? Perhaps they’re revamping their business strategy, to reopen better than ever. Extra-extra large pizzas, anyone?

The only thing I can do at this point is keep hope alive. If Jesus can rise from the dead, so can the best pizzeria in Rochester. My heart, soul, and stomach wait faithfully.

Lets get the whole truth

2006-04-15T21:58:00.000-04:00

To properly ceIebrate Good Friday, I went to the Mets-Brewers game yesterday night (another win for the Amazins), and during the 4th inning or so, we got into a debate about Barry Bonds, steroids, and more specifically, the new steroid investigation.

Now, Alex kept talking over me, and somewhat because of this, I couldn’t articulate my argument too well, so I’ll use Pete for America as my forum. I’ve increasingly shied away from writing about sports, primarily because I don’t think I’m too good at it, but I think this is more up my alley than most other things.

As basically everyone in America knows, professional sports have gotten a bit of a black eye in recent years from the growing public awareness of illicit steroid use. Track and Field, as we all know, has a long and muddied history resulting from the use of these performance enhancers. In the past few years, the extent to which steroids were used in baseball has become a part of the public record. We’re all pretty much positive that Sosa and McGwire were juiced out of our minds when they obliterated Maris’s home run record, and thanks to the investigative work of two intrepid San Francisco Chronicle reporters, most people believe that Barry Bonds and others were doping at alarming rates.

Disgracefully, baseball only officially banned steroids in 2002. Sure, before that, they were illegal, and definitely immoral, but because, in general, steroids helped to lift baseball out of its post-strike funk, owners turned the other way while players arms, legs, and heads exploded. If we’re to believe Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti, Jason Giambi’s grand jury testimony, and a number of excellent journalists, the period from 1990 until 2005 can be known as the Steroid Era, and unfortunately, nearly all offensive numbers are diminished because of it. Even if a player didn’t use steroids, the fact that he played in such an offensive era, with a cloud of suspicion over every home run hit, means that his reputation is unfairly damaged because of the actions of others.

That much Alex and I agree on. We disagree strongly about what Major League Baseball should do about it today. At the risk of turning him into a straw man, Alex believes that what happened in the past should more or less be pushed under the rug. He doesn’t agree with George Mitchell’s investigation, because he thinks it will unfairly target Bonds and not others. He also doesn’t think we can do anything to change the past today. There was a culture of steroid use, we should clean it up today, and get past the entire ugly incident. Besides, we all know who did steroids, even if Bonds doesn’t have an asterisk by his name in the record books, we all know that he was hopped up on horse steroids, and thats enough for Alex.

Needless to say, I strongly disagree. No one has estimated that more than 50% of players used steroids, and in all honesty, it was probably a lot more like 10%-20%, or less. Obviously, we can’t find everyone who did steroids during this period and brand them with a scarlet S, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t investigate to find out what happened. Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, and others cheated, and when evidence is available to prove that they did, it should be pursued. From what I’ve read, Senator George Mitchell has a blank check to do whatever he feels appropriate to get to the bottom of the steroid problem in baseball. Mitchell and his team of investigators should try to put together a comprehensive report of what went wrong in baseball during the 1990’s. They should interview everyone they can, they should follow up on all evidence presented, and they should place blame where it belongs. This sorry episode couldn’t have happened without the complicity of the owners and Commissioner Bud Selig, and Mitchell’s report should plainly state that. We can’t erase the record books, we can’t rewrite history, but we can still do something about happened.

When something terribly wrong happens, it should be investigated, and an official report should be put on the record. When the Black Sox threw the World Series, baseball investigated. When Pete Rose bet on baseball, he was investigated. When the Department of Homeland Security bungled (to say the least) the Katrina relief efforts, it was investigated. When President Kennedy was shot and killed, the Warren Commission looked into the event and got to the bottom of it.

When people screw up on something very important (and as America’s past time, I’m going to include baseball as something very important), it only makes sense for an official, blue ribbon investigation to take place, and to put a comprehensive report and history of the event on the record.

50 years from now, people are still going to look back at this period in baseball history regrettably, and there’s nothing we can do about that now. But we can figure out who did what, and when. We can clear some players, and implicate others. Why should Ken Griffey Jr.’s career be cast with aspersions when he’s (probably and hopefully) never even touched a performance enhancer? Rather than have a few scattered books written on the subject and use them as an incomplete record of the incident, why not commission an official report as the definitive history of the subject?

This isn’t just about Bonds, although the fact that he’s the biggest star who stinks of steroids means that he’s going to get a lot of attention. But he’s already getting a lot of attention, and maybe if this commission reveals the extent to which steroids were abused in baseball, Bonds will come across as a more sympathetic figure. If everyone really was using, he was just leveling the playing field for himself. Right now, he’s vilified, because we’re not sure about everyone else, but we’re pretty positive about him.

Baseball is America’s oldest national sport, and just because something happened four years ago (Bonds hitting 73 dingers) shouldn’t mean we throw up our hands and say “Well, what happened in the past is the past, the only thing we can do now is move on!”. Its not easy to look into a regrettable part of one’s history, but sometimes its the necessary thing to do. In this case, Major League Baseball should encourage Senator Mitchell and his team to leave no stone uncovered and write a comprehensive and official account of what went wrong in baseball.

A good Friday indeed!

2006-04-14T09:52:00.000-04:00

For all of those who have been checking PeteforAmerica religiously the past couple of days, you can all breathe a sigh of relief, because the passover happy hour was a resounding success. Granted, it hit me in the wallet quite a bit more than I expected, but all in all, I think all parties involved had an excellent time. I've been told by a number of people to organize similar events in the future, although at a slightly less pricey establishment.

Anyway, so I just finished Mountains Beyond Mountains at the recommendation of Mrs. T (the law student, not the pierogi lady), and let me say, it was one hell of a recommendation. In fact, I'll pass it on to all of you, because I think we can all use a little inspiration once in a while.

Paul Farmer (the focus of the book) spoke at Rochester during Meliora weekend my senior year, and his answer to a question crystallized my changing political outlook in a profound way. An ambitious Students for Social Justice member asked a question about how the medical community could go about curing the third world's diseases on a large scale if the pharmaceutical companies were beholden to corporate interests and more concerned with making money than saving lives.

Now Paul Farmer's politics put him somewhere in the neighborhood of Fidel Castro. He's more or less a socialist, but if you want to quibble, he considers himself a liberation theologist. He believes that the gap between rich and poor in this world isn't just unfortunate, but its downright criminal. But what he said really captured my political beliefs in a nutshell.

Farmer said something along the lines of "You have to remember, while these companies are profit driven and obligated to increase revenues for their shareholders, they are still managed and operated by human beings. You need to appeal to the good side of people, the charitable side of people, and try to find a common ground through which you can get things done. Demonizing these faceless corporations does nothing to relieve suffering, but reaching out to their better nature does. I strongly disagree with how the World Health Organization or major drug companies operate, but I still need their help, so instead of constantly fighting them, I try to reach out to them and then try to convince them our way is the right way."

Obviously I'm paraphrasing a lot, but it was something in that general ballpark. Now, I'm pretty liberal guy, on most political issues, I'm firmly on left side of the Democratic party. But especially these days, I think I come across as pretty moderate. I have trouble demonizing those people I disagree with. Sometimes this comes out as touchy-feely mush (notably in the James Carville-Mary Matalin editorial from a year and a half ago than Dan rightly called me out on, although never in print).

The thing is, I actually feel bad for the Bush Administration right now, purely because I sympathize with anyone aboard a sinking ship. I think the Republicans are driving this country into the ground, but I don't question the sincerity of their beliefs. I just think for the most part, they've got an incredibly flawed world view, and their leaders' incompetence at managing a nation is finally showing.

Anyway, read the book and get inspired.

What a wonderful time of the year

2006-04-11T23:57:00.000-04:00

While Pete For America may be my passion, it certainly doesn't pay the bills (until I sell out and the 12 of you start buying things from whatever sponsors I can rustle up). The Chosen People do. Specifically, the Jewish Child Care Association does. Even more specifically, this guy named Rick does, but I suppose thats getting a bit too specific.

Anyway, as an employee of a Jewish organization, I benefit from the perks resulting from the existence of approximately 300 Jewish holidays during the 365 days of the year. I guess 4,000 years of beautiful history from Moses to Sandy Koufax means you've got a lot of things to celebrate.

Therefore, beginning at high noon tomorrow, I get a day and a half off to properly celebrate Passover. I don't have much planned so far, maybe a hair cut, a trip to post office, and probably a midday run through the park.

As a gentile, I won't be exclusively eating unleavened bread, but I will remember when I tried it during freshman year. Believe me, it sucks. Plus, at the risk of sharing too much information, it makes you really irregular.

Coming back to the point of this post, I get a day and a half off during the middle of the week. I was talking to a couple of non-jewish officemates, and we decided that we should celebrate at a local irish brew pup after works lets out tomorrow.

So I sent out the following email to all the young, non-observant Jews I could find:

Fellow staff of 120 Wall Street -

When I was a child, half days at Ichabod Crane Elementary School were a cause of great excitement and anticipation. Depending on the season, the second half of a half day could mean bike rides, pool parties, sledding, or something less wholesome and productive. Nevertheless, a half day was something to be cherished and fully celebrated. I'm sure it was the same for all of you.

Now, as we're all undoubtedly aware, we have a half day of work on Wednesday. While I can't promise a pool party, I can say that we should not let this opportunity pass by uncelebrated.

Therefore, in line with efforts to constant improve the quality of workplace morale, the Quality Improvement team would like to invite all of you to a Happy Hour at the Full Shilling Irish pub on 160 Pearl Street at 1 o'clock promptly Wednesday afternoon.

I trust that you'll all forward this invitation to anyone who might want to join us.

Cordially Yours -

Pete
Connections Specialist and Happy Hour Planner

While I thought this was a clever way to increase workplace morale, evidently others did not, because I've gotten no responses.

So, tomorrow could end up being the date of my great accomplishment, or my most bitter professional failure.

We'll find out shortly......

Whats new on Monday?

2006-04-10T10:05:00.000-04:00

I've decided to turn Monday's into link day. I'm doing this for two reasons really.

#1 - I read alot over the weekend, and get my hands on some pretty interesting articles.

#2 - I'm running short on material at times these days, and doing a links day would keep this ball rolling, albeit without much of my original work.

So here we go!

Rolling Stone gives some perspective on the Facebook -

Remember the good old days of Olympic Sports? You know, back before I was born, people used to make a big deal about whether the US beat the USSR in any type of Olympic sport, from bobsled to basketball to bocce ball. Today, thats not really the case, but at least Kenya and Ethiopia can live out the African distance running version of the cold war. (Disclaimer: Non-runners will be completely bored by this article)

Boo France! I sorta loved you before the Iraq war started, but now I've realized that you're just plain nuts.

According to both Seymour Hersh and the Washington Post, we're getting ready to take it to Iran. Yeah, I'm sure this will end well...

I've said it before, and I guess I'll just say it again - Poor Britney

And finally, two excellent New York Times pieces, one about Jesus and Politics and the other really long one about El Salvador's attempts to turn itself in Pat Robertson's wet dream

And people wonder why?

2006-04-08T13:23:00.000-04:00

I read some article the other day about how a lower percentage of 5th graders want to become President of the United States now than at any time since the started taking the survey with the first Roosevelt administration. Only 20% of kids would like to grow up and be President. In 1975, right after Watergate and Vietnam, only 20% of kids would not want to grow up to be President. That's right, in the thirty-one years since perhaps the most corrupt and criminal Presidency ever, the percentage of children wanting to be President has completely flip flopped. But its not George Bush's fault, the number has been steadily declining since Nixon, and has simply reached a new low this year.

And with the exception of the 2004 election, when young people turned out to vote in higher numbers than anytime since the 1970's, people of our generation don't vote, and they sure as hell don't pay attention to politics in general. Also, many people disparaged our generation after the election, because it didn't gain much of a percentage of the total voting electorate. That's true, but only because the rest of America turned out to vote as well.

So young people are called apathetic, their civic commitment is challenged, and older Americans do a bunch of hand wringing about what can be done to instill young people with a sense that running for public office is important and voting is the simplest test of good citizenship.

You want to know what I think? (and of course you do, you're reading my "blog" after all) - I think they're missing the boat entirely.

Its not that young people are apathetic, it spends more time doing charity work (far more than they need to get in to Middlebury or Oberlin) than any prior generation. Teenagers and young adults donate tremendous amounts of time at soup kitchens, food pantries, habitat for humanity, and the like. What they don't do is pay much attention to politics.

And why's that? Because the soul has been sucked out of the American political process, silly.

In the 22 years since I've been born, their have been two (TWO!) enormously consequential bills passed by Congress and signed by the President. One was the welfare reform bill of 1996, which changed the way we treat our poor, and the other was the authorization Congress gave President Bush to go invade Iraq.

Sure, there have been other things passed, a bunch of tax cuts, the Patriot Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the first war in Iraq, etc., but nothing that approaches the things debated in Congress when our parents were growing up. They have the Civil Rights act, we have the Solomon Amendment. They have the Voting Rights Act, we have No Child Left Behind. They had the bill to create Medicare, we had the bill to add a pharmaceutical drug company handout to Medicare.

Simply put, until this most recent war in Iraq, there haven't been events in my lifetime that would push a young middle class child to take an interest in politics.

Granted, I'm a little different, I've read Time magazine since I was 10, and I don't know why, but I certainly understand why a majority of people our age just don't care.

It also seems like the cards are set in advance, and their isn't too much suspense in politics anymore. During this President Bush's time in office, there have been two bills that went into Congress and no one had much of an idea how they were going to come out. We all knew that he was going to get the ability to invade Iraq, we all knew that his tax cuts were an inevitability, etc. What we didn't know was how the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill would come out, and we still don't know what the final immigration bill will look like. Those were the only times where party lines didn't seem to matter as much as personal convictions on a subject. Twice has their been free flowing debate on issues of tremendous consequence to America.

But the results... The campaign finance bill passed, but got watered down in a few places. Plus, with the expansion of internet based fundraising, its sort of been rendered mute. The internet has democratized the political fundraising process more than most people could have imagined. To donate money to a candidate now, I don't need to wait for an expensive dinner to come to my town, I can just go online and donate. More people contributed money to candidates in 2004 than at any other time in American history.

And immigration? Well, now we have a draconian and unrealistic billed passed by the House, and a stalemate in the Senate. Over 60 Senators support a bill on the floor, but the Republicans want to add votes on a bunch of amendments to it, so that Democrats will have to vote against increasing border security. Democrats are blocking that from happening, and thus the bill is deadlocked. And we wonder why people think government can't get anything done!

Faced with those kinds of things, of course people are going to spend their time focusing on subjects they feel they can make a difference. Of course people are going to volunteer for charitable causes, not only for the intrinsic benefits, but because their are tangible results. Or, they're going to decide that watching sports is more rewarding than understanding the intricacies of the American political process, because at least sports are cut and dry, not to mention more interesting on a lot of levels.

Next stop, Boise!

2006-04-04T22:00:00.000-04:00

In the time I've lived in New York City, I've gotten used to alot of the unique particularities of life here. For example, I've learned all about subway etiquette, being an unmarried and lonely baby boomer, and most importantly, the diehard belief in the exceptionalism of New Yorkers, even when faced with a snowstorm.

Now that we've taken this trip down memory lane, lets come back to the present, and one more things that I've learned. I went for a run after work today, and being part of the working world, let me say that I've really come to appreciate daylight saving time. Getting home at 6 and experiencing broad daylight is feeling like no other. Spring Forward Day has the potential to become my third favorite day of the year (behind "Bring Your Daughter to Work" Day and "National Administrative Assistants Appreciation" Day, of course).

Anyway, getting back on topic, I went for a run today (10 mile goal for the week!). I was running in Prospect Park, which we all know to be the finest park in all of Brooklyn and during the run, I stumbled across the dog park portion of the grounds. Let me say, I couldn't possibly prepare myself for it. Imagine 50 dogs, all of their leashes, trotting around seemingly aimlessly, paying very little attention to each other, the masses of people, and a single runner who happened to be running in between them.

Having grown up in what I like to idealize as a Johnny Cougar Melloncamp song, I know how dogs are supposed to behave around each, around strangers, and especially around runners.

1) They're supposed to harass and bother every stranger they see. Barking isn't required, but at the very least, they need to shower unfamiliar people with attention

2) They're supposed to sniff each others rear end, and then either chase each others tail or bite one another.

3) When they spot a runner, they should run after him full speed, and try to either run in between his legs or bite his heels.

These dogs did nothing of the sort, and it made me realize how incredibly domesticated and highly socialized city dogs are. Every single time a dog leaves its cramped apartment for a walk, its constantly surrounded by other dogs and people. By the time a dog is 6 months old, odds are that its encountered at least 500 other dogs. Because other dogs are so common, and encounters with people are even more regular, a dog loses all of its hyper-social behavior.

I mention all of this because I want to own a dog so badly. I probably think about it once a day. At a bar called "The Gate" in Park Slope on Saturday night, some young lad had his golden retriever with him on the patio. I must have ignored my friends for at least 20 minutes while I played with this dog, and I'd be lying if I didn't think of different ways to steal him for myself.

At the same time, I can't get a dog now, it wouldn't be right to the animal. Dogs should run free, not sit alone in a crowded apartment for 9 hours while its owner works.

Therefore, I'm announcing today that I've begun planning for my move to Idaho. Anyone care to join me?

Botoxed Sideline Reporters

2006-04-03T21:45:00.000-04:00

I really don't like the botox look thats been sweeping America the last few years. I understand that baby boomers desperately feel the need to hang on to their youth, but honestly, I think it looks pretty gross. There's nothing less attractive than a woman who can't truly smile or frown anymore, all in the hopes of looking like a 25 year once again.

So when I saw Lesley Visser on CBS the other night covering the NCAA tournament, I physically and abruptly recoiled in disgust.

For those unfamiliar, Lesley Visser is a legendary sideline reporter. You can visit www.leslievisser.com for more information about her.

Anyway, so this is what she looked like a few years ago.

I couldn't find a post-botox picture, but believe me, its a different woman.

Shocked and awed, to say the least, I did what any young person taken aback by plastic surgery abuses would do, I googled her.

What I discovered was that Lesley Visser had taken a nasty nasty fall in Central Park while jogging, fracturing her pelvis, hip and nose, and requiring an extensive amount of plastic surgery to take care of the scars. Then I felt like a complete jackass for judging her after horrific injury. During her recuperation, she became an expert on Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Then I noticed the dateline on the article, it was 1993.

I didn't feel like such a bad man anymore, although I do feel bad that she had such horrifically bad work done. She literally can't show any emotion anymore.

The ironic thing about being absolutely disgusted by bad work done to an older woman is that I'm still judging her based on her appearance, I just think the botox look is uglier than the natural one. It doesn't take away the fact that I'm still judging her based on her looks, its just a different sort of judgement.

Student Spectrum

2006-04-01T15:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was interviewed at length by WNBC Channel 4 news for a story they did about the Connections computer system. Unfortunately the program has been working extremely poorly lately, and has negatively impacted the quality of social work done for children across New York State. The interview itself lasted about 10-15 minutes, and I got approximately 10 seconds of airtime. I can't complain though, it spiced up an otherwise uneventful friday at work.

It was a pretty wild experience, and if I could find the clip on the website, I'd certainly link it to all of you. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be posted yet. There is a story from the previous night, but it doesn't feature me and my new best friend (my beard).

Anyway, the cameraman was a fairly friendly guy, and he chatted me up a bit before the interview began. He asked me if I'd ever been on television before. I mentioned my countless appearances on URTV hamming it up for the cameras. Then I mentioned my appearance on Student Spectrum in 5th grade.

Those readers not from the greater Albany area (also known by its monikor of "Greatest state capital in our Union"), Student Spectrum was an effort by the local CBS affiliate to get 10 year olds interested in becoming journalists. You'd go there on an afternoon and see the Mr. Food set. Then you'd sit down at an incredibly budget set and read off the teleprompter about some type of news subject.

I missed the first couple hours of Nature's Classroom (which is a whole different 5th grade story), to read a story about the rabies epidemic that was sweeping the nation. The story would aired the next morning at 5:55, and sits in the Nabozny video tape archives directly next to my first communion and my acting role as Santa Claus in the Kindergarten play (that was in the days before those godless atheists took the Christ of Christmas!).

Anyway, to this day, I know that rabies is only found in mammals, and is most common in skunks, raccoons, and bats, although it often shows up in foxes or possums as well. You can tell if one if these animals is rabid if they aren't afraid of humans or wander around lost during broad daylight. Of course, the tell tale sign is if they're foaming at the mouth.

And there you have it folks, another public service announcement from the staff at Pete For America.

Baseball Hat University

2006-03-30T19:55:00.000-05:00

For those who missed the big news last Wednesday, I’ve grabbed onto the journalistic comet that is “Pete for America” and am now an honorary guest contributor. True to character, I show up late without an excuse.

This whole ‘guest contributor’ deal is in part a nod to the brilliance that was weinersjim.com. As an undergraduate I regularly enjoyed the comical brilliance of site founders Janowitz and Voisine. Bloggers before “blog” was even a word, these pioneers assembled a large readership through refreshing commentary and cheap jokes at Alex “Voetsch” Voetsch’s expense. Two good writers meant twice the fun! They even had a merchandising site, which I can only assume made millions of dollars.

Perhaps my presence will add some contrast to an already well-visited web destination. My viewpoint is somewhat analogous to Pete’s, although generally more opinionated and less informed. Expect a ‘fair and balanced’ dialogue at least on par with Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes”.

As for my first true contribution, I intended to write an in-depth comparison on the nineties alt-movies “Singles” and “Reality Bites”. This had PFA written all over it. It is an absolutely trivial topic – that’s PFA standard fare. While not a list of any kind (another PFA favorite), it is a clear comparison of two pop culture relics. The inspiration, however, has passed. “Singles” is by far a better movie. Despite the alt-dreaminess of Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke, “Reality Bites” leaves a lot to be desired.

So as an alternative, I will share a very amusing quote from “The Simpsons”, a long-time favorite of mine. This quote comes from the “Lisa the Treehugger” episode, where Bart gets a job distributing menus for a Thai restaurant. The owner explains the business strategy to him:

“You hang Thai menu on door. I get more business. Send daughters to small liberal arts college. Swarthmore, maybe Sarah Lawrence. Call professors by first name. Ha -- dynamite!”

After numerous frustrations, Bart ends up throwing the menus in a dumpster. The restaurant owner sees him and exclaims,

“Now, restaurant fail. Children go to state college. Serious students powerless against drunken jockocracy. Baseball hats EVERYWHERE.”

This dialogue - especially the last line - is something that surely went right over my head when I first saw the episode years ago. As I grew older I began to really appreciate the multi-leveled humor of old Simpsons episodes. This is something sorely lacking in later episodes, and don't even get me started on the lowest common denominator humor of “Family Guy”.

Having attended one university and now working for another, I’m especially glad that I did not spend my four years surrounded by baseball hats within a ‘drunken jockocracy’, a state in which many universities – public and private – seem to find themselves. While my opinion of UR is far from rosy, I can at least be grateful for that.

Francophobia from an ex-Francophile

2006-03-29T22:27:00.000-05:00

I don't speak the French too much anymore (although bits and pieces of it came back during a family fun week in Quebec two summers ago), but I do think that I've always been a fan of France. Sure, they're kind of haughty taughty, but I've always found the French to be a cultured, refined, and reasonable people. In the run-up to "Operation Iraqi Freedom), I have to admit that I sorta enjoyed the fact they stuck it to Bush every chance they got. Sure, it had alot to do with their own oil profits and political expediency, but I figured that they at least had some spunk.

Watching whats gone on there in the past week though, I've concluded that the French, like a great deal of the world these days, have gone absolutely insane. Massive street protests and a general strike because people don't want companies to be able to fire workers under the age of 26? Are you kidding me?!?!

Now I've always considered myself to be someone who is willing to kick ass for the working class, but the fact that in France today you simply cannot get fired is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. No wonder there's 25% unemployment amoung the young people there, if I were an employer I'd be terrified to hire anyone! How the hell are you supposed to know if you're gonna want that person around for the next 30 years, even if they are only working 30 hour work weeks and taking 2 hour paid lunches each day? If I were a French business owner under those sorts of laws, I'd probably stop being a French business owner.

And the thing is, young people in France are upset with the 25% unemployment and want the government to do something to fix it. But when the government finally proposes a couple pieces of reasonable legislation, people literally lose their minds and decide to shut the entire country down.

When people act like this elsewhere in the world, it only lends credence to the dangerous theory that the U.S. has to act alone to get things done. It always makes economic liberalism (which I happen to have a soft spot for) look like the silliest thing this side of the short lived USA network cop show Pacific Blue.

All in all, poor form on the part of the French young people.

Television characters I've loved

2006-03-27T23:10:00.000-05:00

I don't receive much fan mail, but I'm sure thats only because all of you out there don't know how to get in touch with me.

If I did receive fan mail, I'm sure I know what it would look like.

"Thank god you don't try to write about sports anymore, you were pretty terrible at it."

or

"How come you never write about your lack of a love life?"

Well, I can't promise that I won't write about sports in the future, but I'll promise only to do it when I've got something good to say.

As for the love life bit, what can I say, I'm an old fashioned guy. I will however, make a list of my all time top 10 television character (real people and fictitious ones) crushes, for the amusement of all and the eventual embarrassment of myself.

10) Tiffani Smith - Played by the unforgettable Kelly Packard on the early 90's TNBC staple California Dreams. The best looking bassist this side of that girl from Hole. Kept me interested in the show long after I realized how disgustingly bad it was.

9) Winnie Cooper - Played by Danica McKellar on the epochal show Wonder Years. Now, I had more or less forgotten about her, until I somehow watched that new CBS sitcom How I met your Mother on Saturday night. She had a small role as the main character's one night stand partner, and all the pre-pubescent love came back to me. She's also absolutely beautiful now.

8) April O'Neil - OK, so maybe its creepy to have had a crush on a cartoon character. However, this intrepid reporter of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was an absolute babe, and they managed to turn her into a halfway decent movie character when they went to live action.

7) Elizabeth Vargas - ABC's nightly news anchor is probably the love of my life. I was raised in an NBC household, and actually like Brian Williams a good bit. However, I can't get enough of Ms. Vargas, so I've taken to watching her at 6:30. Its not so much sexual as it is intellectual, but in either case, I love her.

6) Lindsey Weir - Played by Linda Cardinelli in the short lived show freaks and Geeks. This one is mainly for Dan's enjoyment (although he better get going on writing a guest entry after the glowing introduction I gave him). I had only seen the show a bit when it was on the air, but watched many of the episodes on DVD last year. Then, I saw her in Brokeback Mountain and decided that she's one of my favorites.

5) Rebecca Donaldson - She really sexed up Full House alongside that stud Uncle Jesse. I never realized how beautiful Lori Loughlin was (seeing as how I was like 8 at the time), until I saw some Full House repeats recently, and was blown away.

4) Debra Barone - I honestly had never watched Everybody Loves Raymond until I graduated college and started catching the reruns in the evenings. Patricia Heaton plays Ray's wife, and if were to honestly imagine the kind of woman I'd want to be married to one day, she'd probably look something like Debra Barone.

3) Elaine Benes - Julia Louise-Dreyfus's character in Seinfeld makes it so high on this list not because I'm particularly attracted to her, but because I think I've seen her more on television than I have most of my friends in real life. Sure, she's a bit on the promiscuous side, but hell, she's a New Yorker! If you're gonna live in Babylon, you've gotta be willing to put out a bit more than most people.

2) Brenda Walsh - The best part about this character on 90210 is that I don't think Shannon Doherty was really acting that much. I'd say she was just about as crazy as the character she played. Brenda was such a classic character for a show like this. Not mean and conniving like a lesser actress would have made her, but genuinely whacked out of her gourd. There's something about crazy girls that drives guys wild, and Shannon Doherty represents that perfectly with this character.

1) Kelly Kapowski - Its not because she was a cheerleader. Its not because she's got a Polish last name. Its not because she was the youngest of 11 children, or because her dad was a laid off military man. Its not even because she was homecoming queen or a big ditz. Its entirely because she got Zack Morris, and every boy that grew up watching Saved By the Bell wishes to this day that he was Zack Morris.

Facial Hair For All!

2006-03-23T12:16:00.000-05:00

This is the greatest development in American male fashion since the marvelous period from 2nd grade through 5th grade when it was half-way socially acceptable to wear sweatpants to school.

For those who haven't seen me in a while, I've been sporting a beard for the past couple of weeks. At first I denied its existence, I told people that had been too busy to shave or that I had lost my razor. I did so because my previous forays into the world of facial hair had typically been disasters, the notable exception being the time I went to the first day of Cross Country practice sporting a halfway decent mustache.

Nevertheless; peer pressure, workplace standards and a late onset of puberty had all conspired against my lifelong dream of having a full beard.

One day though, I woke up and decided I wasn't going to let girls, my boss or my genes stand in the way of me giving the beard another try. So, I started tentatively, continuing to shave the neck (regardless of any trends, neck hair will always be gross), and denying the existence of the beard. Then I let a few co-workers in on my scheme, and they endorsed it wholeheartedly. Then I went home for the weekend, and found my family halfway supportive (my mother being the always notable exception).

Now, I can proudly say, that after three weeks of unfettered growth, the beard is looking halfway decent, and may even need a trimming soon.

Sure, its undoubtedly made me entirely undesirable to the opposite sex, but honestly, that's a small price I'm absolutely willing to pay. Having a beard is a liberating experience, much like not having a car or being legally entitled to buy cigs, booze, lottery tickets or porn.

Big News

2006-03-22T22:10:00.000-05:00

The staff at Pete for America would like to announce the addition of another person to our rapidly expanding stable of writers.

Daniel McIntyre Duett will be joining the site in a limited guest writer capacity. For those unfamiliar with Dan, his background, and what he brings to the table, let me sketch a brief biography for you.

Dan's early life is shrouded mainly in mystery, although one can speculate he grew up in a predominately white, upper middle-class gated suburb of Syracuse, NY. Early on in college, Dan was known for his running prowess, his lengthy recovery from mononucleosis, and his tendency to leave freshman recruits without a place to stay while he slept outdoors on a Saturday night.

As college progressed, Dan continued to excel in athletics, particularly on the cross country course. He may or may not have dropped out of school once or twice, but did indeed graduate on time, and nearly with honors (to boot). Always an opinionated fellow, Dan butted heads with yours truly on a number of issues, but remained my close ideological partner, much to the consternation of the rest of the U of R Cross Country team.

Dan's literary interests include the collected works of John Steinbeck, George Orwell, and Matt Christopher. Musically, he's a fan of hip-hop (no crunk), 80's new wave, and certain varieties of classic rock. Politically, he's usually situated a tad bit to my left, but does not share my adoration of Hillary Clinton (but for purely Machiavellian reasons).

He's currently employed (although perhaps not for long) and living in the greater Syracuse region. Despite his ascetic nature, he plans on moving to Gomorrah (Las Vegas) in several months.

I hope you'll all join me in welcoming Dan to the Pete for America fold!

We apologize for the delay

2006-03-21T21:04:00.000-05:00

First of all, I apologize to all of the loyal Pete For America readers for not posting anything for a while now. I'd love to say that I was on vacation or something, but the truth is that my grandfather passed away last Friday morning and I didn't really feel like writing too much for the ole "blog". And while I don't really like to turn this thing into a personal forum, my extended weekend does merit a few comments.

1) I saw my brother Mike for the first time in 17 months! He got in from Namibia on Monday at 3 o'clock, just in time for my grandfather's wake, and having not slept for 30 hours or so. Needless to say, he was a zombie, but it was still great to see him. The African diet and a steady stream of parasites sure have changed his appearance from a 6'4 rugby player into someone who looks like he could turn a mean 5k.

2) I think I'm well on my way towards realizing my lifelong dream of becoming the official spokesperson for the Jones and Nabozny families. My grandfather died at 4 am on Friday morning, and by 8 pm that night it was decided by my aunts and uncles that I was going to be the one who eulogized him. I've never done anything like that before, and I was pretty hesitant. But my extended family seems to have these "Pete's a politician in training" notions about me, and they figured that since I'm the one in the family who has both taken a course in Public Speaking and served as Students Association President (although none of them have any clue what that actually entails), I might as well eulogize my grandfather before a hundred or so people in a Catholic Church in Stillwater, NY. I worked on the text with my mother and my uncle, and I think it turned out pretty well.

3) I learned more about my grandfather and my family in the past two weeks than I had in the past five years. For example, I learned that he was engaged at the tender age of 16, and only to be dumped at 17. He had the last laugh when he started dating his ex-fiancé's sister. I learned about his experiences in World War II, and more about his two wives than I cared to know. All in all, it was quite the experience. I've also decided that if I ever get around to writing the next great American novel, its going to center around my grandfather and his four children. The dysfunction would make for wonderful literature.

4) I ran into former New York State Assembly minority leader and now Republican gubernatorial candidate John Faso twice on Sunday morning. Once was at church (we exchanged pleasantries), and then immediately afterwards at the Kinderhook bagel shop. I was getting a poppy seed bagel and he was buying about 5 different Sunday newspapers, presumably to see if he got any press that day. My dad and I talked to him briefly, I made a joke about letting the Spitzer and Weld campaigns know that he ducks out of Catholic mass early so that he can read all about himself in the papers. Either he didn't hear me (basically impossible, I'm not that quiet of a talker), or he didn't like my joke (nearly positive that was it).

5) I finally finished Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses on the Amtrak back down to NYC. All and all, a fine read, but definitely one that I was slogging through for a while. Next up is The Bad Guys Won! about the 1986 New York Mets and then probably East of Eden.

Who wants a list?!?!

2006-03-14T22:55:00.000-05:00

Sometimes during runs in college, a few of us used to try to come up a list of songs about running. Very few songs are actually about running, but we can always pretend.

So, without further ado, here are 15 songs that aren't really about running, but runners can pretend they are.

1) Break my Stride - Matthew Wilder: As we all remember, this music accompanied the mens 1500 meter runners to the track. Its a moment we won't soon forget.

2) Running on Empty - Jackson Browne: Apparently he and John McEnroe have been in several fistfights. Thats crazy stuff.

3) Long may you Run - Neil Young: There's nothing about this song that would indicate its about runrunning, other than the chorus. Still, its a hell of a good song.

4) 500 miles - The Proclaimers: The summer before my freshman year in college, my goad was to run 500 miles total: I can honestly say that this song was a main reason I tried that.

5) Racing in the Street - Bruce Springsteen: Its actually about souping up a hot rod and hanging on to your youth. But I always imagined it would be what my life was like after college. Unfortunately, my feet have put that fantasy off for at least a while.

6) It keeps you Running - Doobie Brothers: I've got nothing.

7) Running down a Dream - Tom Petty: "The last three days, the rain was unstoppable, it was always cold, no sunshine" Replace the word rain with snow, and replace three days with forty, and you've got the perfect description of Rochester in January and February.

8) The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - Iron Maiden: One of Iron Maiden's finest songs, just behind "Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter".

9) Stars of Track and Field - Belle and Sebastian: OK, so this song isn't much of a pump up number, but whatever, its actually about track and field.

10) Running with the Devil - Van Halen: I hate Van Halen, but I still like this song.

11) Running against the Wind - Bob Seger: Even if Bob Seger was stealing the Boss' "Running" mojo, its still a winner of a song.

12) I Ran - Flock of Seagulls: One of the finest 80's New Wave songs, and another song you can pretend is all about running.

13) The Long Run - The Eagles: More about enduring love than busting out a hungover 16 miler on a Sunday morning, but nevertheless.

14) Running to Stand Still - U2: I've got nothing once again.

15) Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen: Was there ever any question that this would appear on my list? I sure hope not.

Omitted, after careful consideration: Run Around - Blues Traveler and The Distance - Cake. 90's modern rock just didn't fare to well on my list. Marathon - Rush: Didn't make it because I've never actually heard it. Otherwise, I'm sure it would be on the list.

Anyone else got a song or two to add? I doubt it...

Have we lost our minds?

2006-03-13T22:17:00.000-05:00

I'm not quite ready to turn this little website into a news site just yet, but I'm gonna have to link to another article here. I was reading the New Yorker magazine the other day, trying to complete my transition into a culturally isolated New York City snob, when I stumbled across an article about HPV. Unfortunately, its not available online, but this slightly more partisan take on the same topic appeared in the Nation last spring.

According to the New Yorker, many people on the Christian right have decided to oppose FDA approval for a vaccine that would prevent the spread of HPV. Not because its unsafe, doesn't work, etc. but because it might encourage people to become more promiscuous.

Thats right, people are opposing a CANCER vaccine because it might cause more people to have sex. What would they do if it wasn't HPV, but instead was AIDS? How is this morally justifiable?

Issues like this are my reminder why I can't ever see myself voting Republican. On many issues these days, I have a hard time making up my mind. I don't understand economic policy, I have no fricking clue what we should do in Iraq, and I don't know what to think about Social Security reform. However, I'm nearly positive that I come down on the side of "actual science", rather than this pseudo-scientific crap we get from the Bush administration these days.

I mean, they refuse to acknowledge that we've caused global warming, they think conservation is a personal virtue, they won't allow potentially life-saving stem cell research, and now, they'll probably block a cancer vaccine.

yeah, but its a rat...

2006-03-13T13:42:00.000-05:00

I guess the loneliness of the long distance runner isn't neccessarily a good thing.

Plus, skipping class so you can go to practice might make you smarter and more sociable over time than going to class and running on your own.

On the other hand, this study seems pretty suspect, and there's a big difference between the social skills of rats and that of people (I have to assume).

Poor Britney

2006-03-09T19:50:00.000-05:00

I spend alot of time on New York City's subway system. At the very least, I spend an hour each day riding on the trains, and some days I spend upward of three or more hours between the rails. For the most part, its a pretty boring existence. Occasionally I'll hop on a train containing a homeless man that smells of feces, but for the most part its a pretty mundane experience.

To keep my subway sanity intact, I do a few different things.

Sometimes, I read the subway advertisements.

Sometimes, I read books, magazines or newspapers.

Sometimes I listen to music.

Sometimes I read books, magazines or newspapers and listen to music.

Mostly though, I just like to observe people.

I like listening to Eastern Europeans talk in their native tongue and try to figure out what it is.

I like to look at cute girls and try to make eye contact with them.

I like to try to figure out what books people are reading, and decide whether or not I'd like to read it.

I really like to try to figure out what books cute girls are reading, and then decide whether she's my soulmate. Usually its some trashy Nora Roberts novel or self help book, so its easy to rule them out.

One thing I do every morning is try read the front and back covers of the New York Post and the Daily News. While I can't bring myself to spend the 25 and 50 cents that they each cost respectively, I'm always in awe of the headline writers for those publications.

And while I've never been one to sympathize with Britney Spears, I have to admit I felt sorta bad for her today. This was the front page of the Post this morning

OK, so she's probably pregnant again, its pretty hard to get that sorta gut without a bun in the oven. But lets just say for a moment that she's not. Instead, she's just kinda chubby these days.

Maybe she's having trouble with the weightloss after giving birth. Maybe she's really depressed because she's in a dead-end marriage with a loser and her career is in the toilet. Maybe she's got a nasty case of post-partum depression, and she's taken to the hagen-das pretty heavily. Anyway, whats the best thing to put her over the edge?

How about a picture of her in America's largest tabloid newspaper wearing a bikini with her gut hanging out and a headline implying that she's pregnant?

Look who's back!

2006-03-07T23:14:00.000-05:00

Between the Natalie Portman gangsta rap last weekend and this (admittedly stolen from Eileen), I think Saturday Night Live may finally be coming out of its coma.

Its still a long way from the Celebrity Jeopardy days, not to mention the Sandler, Farley, Spade, Myers hey-day, but its a start.

But thats not whats back....

Regular "Pete For America" readers will recall that I planned on taking the first steps towards my running comeback on Monday March 6th. And what a glorious first couple of steps they were. I ran two miles, quite slowly, but two miles nonetheless. And you know the best part? I woke up Tuesday morning entirely painfree! Walking from my bed to the bathroom was easily the happiest I've felt in my entire adult life, without question. I was on cloud nine all day, I could've been robbed and I still would've considered it a good day. If I were shot in the arm, I probably would've considered it a wash. Shot in the leg, and well, we won't ruin the moment by thinking of that.

A legend passes on

2006-03-06T22:21:00.000-05:00

March 6th is a day that will live on in infamy for the Twin Cities forever. Kirby Puckett has left this world for another.

Kirby was the first major league autograph I got, at a Boston Red Sox game when I was 7 or 8.

To properly show my respects to the Puckett family and Twins franchise, I'm going to refrain from wearing my Minnesota Twins 1987 Western Division Champions t-shirt from the remainder of the Lentel season. See Anna, all it takes if the tragic death of one of your beloved childhood heroes to figure out what you need to do to be a good Catholic again!

And for anyone questioning whether this is really a sacrifice, let me do a top 5 countdown of my favorite t-shirts right now.

5) Unpocketed Grey - no description really needed.

4) Stressed Out - Its got a picture of a cat flipping out on the front, usually a ladykiller. Would rank higher but I can't bring myself to put it into heavy rotation.

3) Pocketed Grey - picture the t-shirt above, and then add a pocket over the left boob.

2) Albany Pats - Honoring the finest professional basketball franchise in Albany history, who are making their big comeback this year in the newly reformed CBA. Coached by Michael Ray Richardson, who of course was run out of the NBA for being a giant coke fiend in the 80's. Thats neither here nor there though.

1) 1987 Minnesota Twins American League Western Division Champions - Just a perfect t-shirt, one that I'm going to miss tremendously for the next 35 days.

So as you can see, this is a big deal for me. And its all to honor the memory of Kirby.

No Natalie, No Curling, No to Xenophobia

2006-03-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

At nine o'clock Saturday night, I figured I'd have a couple thing to write about after the weekend was over. I could've written about meeting Natalie Portman, but that didn't really work out too well for me last night. I could've written about taking the first step towards preparing for the 2010 Winter Games by going curling in Westchester, but I missed the Metro North train.

So.....

I'm gonna go the wannabe political commentator route instead.

For the past three weeks, I've been reading Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.

I decided to read this book for two reasons. When I was sophomore in college, Rushdie came to Rochester and gave a reading and lecture. I was blown away by his eloquence, charm and thoughtfulness. I also wanted to read Satanic Verses because I figured that any book that earns its author a fatwa calling for his head on a plate must be a heck of a read.

I've really enjoyed the book so far, but beyond that, its also made me realize something about myself that I'm ashamed of. (And what place could be better to air things you're ashamed of then a public website?) While reading it on the subway, if I saw a dude who might be a Muslim, I would sorta hide the title to avoid the tiny remote possibility that he might flip out and attack. As entirely unrealistic and irrational as that fear may be, its still there, and its something I'm pretty embarrassed of.

The fact is, extremist Muslims have flipping out quite a bit lately. From the lunatic President of Iran denying the Holocaust to riots over cartoon's depicting the prophet Muhammed, its been a busy month for the jihadist wing of Islam.

(Quick side note: Isn't it sort of entertaining when you hear a news anchor refer to it as "Cartoon Violence"? Even though the subject matter is extremely grave, with embassies and KFC's being burned all over the Arab world, whenever I hear Elizabeth Vargas say "cartoon violence", I get mental images of anvils falling or Wily Coyote falling off a cliff. Am I the only one on this? Anyway, getting off the tangent.)

But my response to all this crazy stuff on in the world does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. If some dude was gonna fight me because I was reading a book he didn't approve of, he's probably going to end up doing something far worse. So, I'd probably be doing a public service by pulling him out of his lunatic hole. But thats not the point, the point is that I had no reason to fear that man other than that he's a Muslim, and thats just plain wrong.

Which brings me to my point, the controversy surrounding the Dubai port deal. Whether or not this United Arab Emirates owned company takes control of eight American ports is entirely irrelevant to the issue of port security. Our port security is in trouble because we inspect less than 10 percent of all incoming cargo, not because a bunch of Muslims are going to own our ports. If we bothered taking a fraction of the money we spend on airline security and put it towards port security, it wouldn't matter whether or not the UAE owned our ports, because our government would be making sure that WMD's aren't coming into Newark. People are opposing this deal not because of the UAE is a government with terrorist sympathies (since 9/11 they've been one of our strongest allies in the Arab world), but because the UAE is the abbreviation for United Arab Emirates.

More than that, I'm ashamed that the Democratic party has decided that instead of making that intelligent argument about securing our ports, they've decided to play the demagogue card and whip up some good old fashioned xenophobia. Sure, this port controversy is probably going to help the party pick up some seats in November, but at what cost? At what point do you put political expediency above your political principles. The Democrats are so excited about outflanking Bush on a matter of national security that they've probably never thought about whether or not its the right thing to do.

Our elected leaders are supposed to be just that, leaders. They should appeal to our better impulses, not our worst fears. They should be telling a 22 year old that he shouldn't give in to his irrational fears, instead of stoking those insecurities and ignorances.

Sure, opposing the Patriot Act or illegal wiretapping may be bad politics (because it makes you look weak on national security), but its something worth standing for. Some things are more important than winning the next election, but the Democratic party evidently decided that taking a stand against nativism wasn't one of them. Sure, 80% of Americans oppose the Dubai port deal, but you know what? 80% of Americans are wrong, and Chuck Schumer should realize that. They're playing political football with American fears, and thats a dangerous and irresponsible thing to do.

As personally shocked as I am to say this, President Bush is 100% correct on this Dubai ports issue. He's been wrong with most of his Middle East policies, but in the case, he's on the money. The key to combatting extreme Islam is cooperation, not isolation. While the Bush Administration has done quite a few underhanded things in the name of national security (the rationale for invading Iraq pops to mind), its never reduced itself to playing the Arab fear card.

Opposition to this deal is somewhat a bipartisan affair, but I really don't expect much of the Republicans, so I'm not really quite as disappointed in them. The Democrats though, despite all of their shortcomings, should be doing better than this cheap political stunt.

A Public Service Announcement

2006-03-03T16:46:00.000-05:00

Remember back in the mid-90's, when animal rights activists were throwing red paint on people wearing fur coats? I always had a hard time figuring out how that whole process worked. I mean, did these PETA activists just carry around buckets of red paint waiting to see someone wearing fur? How did they know they were going to run into someone wearing it? Granted, they were often staking out fashion shows and such, but sometimes the painting's were entirely random. It was so confusing to me, because being an adolescent in Kinderhook, I think I probably saw about two fur coats a winter.

Now though, living in New York City, I understand how easy it is to find people wearing fur coats. People are wearing dead animals left and right! On my walk from the subway to work this morning (about 5 blocks or so), I saw no less than eight people sporting pelts.

You know what I've realized after having seen enough people wear these coats? Forget about cruelty to animals, people should throw red paint on them because these coats are hideous! I'd never realized it before because I've never had prolonged exposure to them, but these fur coats are absolutely abhorrent looking outerwear. I mean, if you want to look like a caveman, then I suppose it makes a little sense, but I really don't think thats the look these people are going for.

I know you're saying to yourself, "Wait, the same Pete who still hasn't figured out how to match his shirts with his pants is trying to become a high end fashion critic?"

In a word, "yes". I realize that my knowledge of fashion consists of me remembering somewhere between two and five percent of what girls have told me. However, furs coats are hideous and disgusting looking, and even someone as fashionably limited as I can identify that.

Move over Match.com

2006-03-01T22:24:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I don't have much tonight, I think a conversation with the originator of Jeanarchy may have transferred her writers block over to me.

So, in the absence of something original, I thought I'd do a little public service for all my fans.

Lets say you're single, in your mid-20's, and hopelessly conservative. The only movie's you've been to in the past two years have been Passion of the Christ and King Kong (thought I was gonna say Narnia, didn't you?). Your favorite books are the Left Behind series and Bill O'Reilly's Who's looking out for you?.

What do you do when you're looking for some love? Especially if you want to avoid all those godless fornicators who didn't get hitched at 19 when they should've?

You go to Hannidate!

The only online dating site designed for conservative followers of Fox News' resident wacko Sean Hannity.

1990

2006-02-28T16:24:00.000-05:00

1990 sure was a pivotal year in the history of the world.

The Iron Curtain came crumbling apart as the East and West Germany finally re-united, the Soviet Union allowed opposition parties and Lech Walesa became the democratically elected President of Poland. Nelson Mandela was released from jail, the Simpsons debuted on Fox, Seinfeld started its run on NBC and the Running Rebels of UNLV won the NCAA basketball tournament. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and Bette Midlers anthem Wind Beneath my Wings soared to the top of the charts.

I was generally unaware of most of these things, although I do recall singing Wind Beneath my Wings at a school assembly to honor our soldiers doing battle with Saddamn in the early parts of 1991. Generally speaking though, I was an insignificant second grader at Ichabod Crane Elementary School, studying such things as cursive writing and the Hardy Boy mysteries under the watchful eye of Mrs. Cumberbach.

1990 still had some significance for me personally though, because in the fall of that year I made my first attempt at organized electioneering. In an effort to introduce us to the importance of civic action, my school borrowed voting machines from the Columbia County Board of Elections and held a little election of our own. Instead of deciding between Bush and Dukakis, our ballots had three separate categories, with four choices for each category.

1) Favorite School Lunch:
a) Pepperoni Pizza
b) Chicken Nuggets
c) Tacos
d) Hamburger and Tator Tots

2) Favorite School Subject
a) Reading
b) Math
c) Science
d) Social Studies

3) Favorite Musician
a) MC Hammer
b) New Kids on the Block
c) Whitney Houston
d) Kenny Rogers

For the purposes of this story, I'm going to ignore number one and two (although for the record, I believe I probably selected d and b respectively). Instead, I'm going to focus my energies upon number three.

I bring this all up because I learned today that MC Hammer has joined the "blogosphere" (found here). Plus, it provides a decent excuse to tell of my attempt to become the Karl Rove of the Ichabod Crane Primary School.

Me and two buddies from bus route 72 (Tom and Josh), decided that we wanted to ensure a Kenny Rogers electoral victory. I don't recall the exact reasoning behind this, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with our bus driver Miss Quigley telling us she was a big Kenny Rogers fan. As a group of 7 year olds who justifiably worshipped our salty menthol smoking 60 year old bus driver, we took her endorsement as inspiration to deliver the race to Kenny Rogers. It was either that or we were all PBS fans and got him confused with Fred Rogers. Either way, its not important.

The important is, we began campaigning for Kenny, who was clearly the longshot in the race. In fact, looking back, I have no idea how even got in the running. I mean, Kenny Rogers? In a contest for the votes of a bunch of second graders, he's not even a Ralph Nader, he's like the Natural Law party candidate or something.

Nevertheless, we began a massive playground and lunchroom campaign to win votes for Kenny. At that age, most kids don't know much about popular music, and while they had probably heard NKOTB and Whitney Houston, they didn't really have their loyalties set yet. Besides, you listened to whatever your dad listened to. Thats how I grew up on Bruce Springsteen and Creedence, and how Dan grew up with Journey and R.E.O.

Anyway, so we campaigned heavily for Mr. Kenny Rogers. We didn't put up fliers or anything, we were like 7 years old, but we did reach a good portion of the second grade. We actually managed to win Kenny Rogers a narrow plurality of second grader's votes, but were unable to overcome his pitiful showing among the first grade and the kindergarten. An old fashioned shoe-leather campaign was no match for Hammertime and 6 year olds I guess.

Kenny finished third out of the four candidates, just beating Whitney Houston for the bronze medal. Hammer won handily, while NKOTB finished a strong second.

It was my first electoral defeat, and one that I took pretty hard. In fact, I don't know if I've ever gotten over that stinging loss.

And this is what I do in my spare time

2006-02-27T20:24:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, when I was doing some research for my now infamous (to me) Pauly Shore post, I spent a good bit of time on IMDB. The purpose of my visit was to ascertain which actors played different characters. Inadvertantly though, I fell in love with another feature of the site.

I simply can't get enough of the goofs section of the site. Check out the piece on The Big Lebowski. Who's putting these things together? The level of detail is simply absurd, and as such, it captivates me.

My obsession with this has translated into my movie watching as well. For example, before joining the lovely Anna at the Shubert Theater to see Spamalot (click here for her expert or not so expert analysis), I watched Money Train on TBS.

For those unfamiliar with Money Train, its a mid-90's Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson vehicle about two cops in New York City. They play brothers (adopted obviously), and Wesley's character is always getting Woody's character out of trouble. They end up hijacking the train that transports the MTA's weekly revenues, aptly named the "Money Train"

Having fallen in love with the aforementioned feature of IMDB, I started paying careful attention to continuity breaks, inconsistencies, and such. And as a resident of the Big Apple, I started following the subway scenes very closely. And much to my personal satisfaction, I discovered one key mistake at the end. The money train ends up on the F train in Brooklyn, in an exciting scene where it continually crashes into the commuter train in front of it. As reported on IMDB, it announced that the train will shortly be approaching the Fort Hamilton stop, and so all the cops and Robert Blake head to that station. However, when the train crashes, its at the Prospect Park stop.

Now, thats standard stuff, the Prospect Park stop is the one prior to the Fort Hamilton stop, so its not all that unrealistic. But after Woody and Wesley simultaneously punch Robert Blake and J-Lo arrests him for killing his wife (I mean for endangering the lives of all the subway passengers), Woody and Wesley stumble out of the subway stop. Mysteriously, PROSPECT PARK TURNS INTO TIMES SQUARE!!! They're right there for the ball drop! The two places are 8 miles apart (as the crow flies), but somehow they just appeared there.

Now maybe its because I've only been here for 6 months now, but thats never, ever, ever, happened to me. Usually a trip to midtown Manhattan at that 11 pm takes about an hour or so, and one has to imagine with the train derailment that the delays would be even longer.

OK, so obviously Brooklyn didn't magically turn into midtown Manhattan, nor did the guys hop back on a train and get over the Midtown. This of course means I discovered something that wasn't found on IMDB.com.

Definitely the high mark of my professional career. I contacted the proper authorities at IMDB and hopefully they'll put it up on the website sometime soon.

Goosebumps anyone?

2006-02-24T19:08:00.000-05:00

Yeah, pretty much the greatest basketball related event to happen in the greater Rochester area since the Rochester Royals won the NBA Championship in 1951. In fact, it probably surpasses it.

This video just makes you get all warm inside, and there's a 50% chance you'll burst out crying.

For the Alumni Crowd

2006-02-23T22:46:00.000-05:00

I wish I was still in school for this one.

Once his name becomes public, where does this put him on the list of U of R student celebrities? My guess is that he's still somewhere below Chris Porco, but significantly ahead of Seth Hauben.

Its high time I went for a run

2006-02-23T20:38:00.000-05:00

On Thursday August 18th, I went for a 4 mile run with Pat Cain. It's been 189 days since that post-work jaunt.

In that time, I've lived in three different places, gained 12 pounds, and switched jobs. I've bought a new computer and visited Puerto Rico for the first time.

Also since that day; a massive hurricane destroyed Louisiana, Bloomberg won re-election, Ed Crowley's gotten engaged, Jaime McIntyre's gotten married, and Ned Thimmayya's left for and returned from China. My brother Mike's probably picked up 7 or 8 new parasites in Africa, my sister Julie got her learners permit and my Mom started taking classes for a masters degree.

Needless to say, its been a long time since I went for a run. However, thats all about to change. On Monday, March 6th, after 200 days away from running, I'll lace up a brand new pair of shoes and head out the door for a light jog. It promises to be one of the more depressing runs of my life, because I fully expect to keel over after a mile, give or take 800 meters.

So you're asking yourself, "Pete, why haven't you run in 189 days?"

You see, for two years now, I've battled Plantar Fascitis.

And after months of saying my prayers and taking my vitamins, I'm finally kicking the damn thing. If not, and my feet hurt the next day, I'm probably going to try to run the 4 miles to the Brooklyn Bridge (if I can make it that far) and take a big jump into the East River.

And the girl from "Freaks and Geeks" was in it too!

2006-02-22T21:20:00.000-05:00

When most guys head back to visit old friends at college, they tend to do college things. They drink, the reminisce, they talk about the wife and kids, they try to hook up with girls they had crushes on years ago, etc.

Now, I won't deny having done all of these things, although in my defense, I didn't put together an honest effort for the fourth one on that list. I also did something that I think far too few heterosexual 22 year old males have found worth doing. I saw Brokeback Mountain. Please hold your applause until the end.

Honestly, it was one of the best films I've seen in a long time. Taking the whole gay cowboy lovers angle and putting that aside for a minute, it was simply an outstanding film. Its rare that a film touches you at such a raw emotional level, and the entire cast did a wonderful job putting forth such powerful performances.

But no one can objectively analyze the movie without addressing the homosexual element, because the personal turmoil of Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger's characters was the defining aspect of the film. One of them was tormented by his homosexuality, and the only time he was truly at peace was when he was with the other. The other seemed to accept his homosexuality (while being happily married), and felt open enough to express it in different manners. For both of them though, the love they shared was the defining element of their lives, and their homosexuality was central to the struggles they encounter.

At its core, the film is a love story, a modern day Romeo and Juliet. The two truly are star crossed lovers, but instead of rival families keeping them apart, its society's intolerance of homosexuality. The film is tremendously depressing, my movie date Becky was pretty tearful at the end, but it also tells you how far we've come as a society.

One hundred years ago, homosexuality wasn't even part of the national discussion.

Fifty years ago, homosexuality was basically a crime. Sodomy was illegal and gay men were openly persecuted in all but the most tolerant areas of the country.

Twenty years ago, President Reagan wouldn't even utter the word "AIDS", because it was an acknowledgement of a disease that was sweeping the gay community.

Today, we're openly debating the societal merits of gay marriage. While most Americans may be against gay marriage, the fact that its even on the radar is a major step. A majority of Americans favor some type of civil liberties for gay partners, so that a gay couple can visit each other in the hospital and make key decisions for one another on their deathbed.

Today, millions of heterosexual Americans are comfortable enough with themselves to watch two men fall in love with one another on film, and the film is so widely accepted that is predicted to win several Oscars in a few weeks.

Today, its perfectly acceptable for a 22 year old male to go to movie and nearly be brought to tears by the hardships endured by two gay cowboys. Seeing Brokeback Mountain this past weekend made me realize how far we've come as a society, and despite all the difficulties our nation faces today, it made me hopeful and optimistic for the future.

Thank you Jake and Heath, and not just for showing your bums on screen.

They'd be better with Doc and Daryl

2006-02-21T21:44:00.000-05:00

Some people look forward to the middle of February for Valentine's Day. The chocolates, the roses, the disappointing dinners, etc. Now despite having my fair share of relationships, I've never had a girlfriend at Valentine's Day time. As I told someone recently, Valentine's Day typically falls in the down period between a failed fall relationship and a failed springtime one.

But thats neither here nor there. I look forward to February 16th for two reasons, pitchers and catchers. Screw the groundhog, when pitchers and catchers show up to camp, spring can't be far behind. Its also a good time to look at prospects for the New York Mets in the upcoming season. So, without further ado, lets look at the Mets lineup and rotation for the upcoming season, and make some predictions for the summer.

My projected batting lineup:

1) Jose Reyes - SS: One of the most exciting young players in the league. Stole 60 bags last year and established himself a dynamite threat on the basepaths. Unfortunately, his inability to take a pitch and draw a walk is a serious problem the Mets have to work on. A leadoff hitter with a .300 on base percentage is a crappy leadoff hitter, no matter how many bases he steals.
2) Carlos Beltran - CF: Last year he was the Mets 100 million dollar bust. This year, lets hope he's healthy and able to run a bit. If I were manager Willie Randolph, I'd stick Beltran in this spot, where he's a bit more comfortable. Hopefully Beltran's adjusted to the NYC spotlight a bit this year, and he can hit .280 with 30 dingers and 20-30 SB's.
3) David Wright - 3B: Personally, Wright's my favorite Met, and thats why I'd like to see him in the three hole this season. He's also very young, rapidly improving, and it looks like he's developing into a good clubhouse guy.
4) Carlos Delgado - 1B: Delgado was the Mets biggest pick-up this winter, as part of the Marlins firesale. I'm a little worried he'll have some trouble adjusting to Shea (like so many before him), but he's been rock solid throughout his career, so I'm sure he'll be fine.
5) Cliff Floyd - LF: Once he got off the juice (did you see how his head shrunk last year?), he was finally able to stay healthy and put together a quality season. It remains to be seen how many more quality seasons he has left in the tank, but I'm betting he'll come fairly close to last season's production.
6) Paul LoDuca - C: Big pickup to replace Mr. Met Mike Piazza. A little older than I'd like, but he's still got 2 or 3 years left of productive catching and hitting. A big first half hitter who tails off as the year goes on, he should help get the Mets started off hot. There's been talk of him as the second hitter, because he gets on base well, but I'd feel more comfortable with him down in this spot.
7) Xavier Nagy/Victor Diaz - RF: Big battle coming up this spring for the starting job in right field. If the Mets were smart, they'd pick their winner and trade the other one for another quality starting pitcher, but we'll get to that later.
8) Kaz Matsui - 2B: Man, what a disaster he's been. They should've kept Miguel Cairo and not even thought of fooling around with steroidless Bret Boone, who may get a spot on the roster.
9) Pitcher: See below

Pitching Rotation:
1) Pedro Martinez - The obvious ace of the staff comes into the season with a couple question marks. He's got some toe problem that's been bothering him for the last 6 months or so. Given that it hasn't gone away yet after that much rest, I'm a little panicked. Also, his shoulder's a constant liability and could probably go at any moment.
2) Tom Glavine - Yeah, he's 40 this year. Yeah, he's been incredibly inconsistent since he came over from the Braves (for the record, I was against that deal). Yeah, he's got 275 wins and may not hit 300. But... maybe Shea's not a Questec park this year, and maybe he'll turn back the clock one more time. I'm not too optimistic though.
3) Steve Trachsel - Isn't he one of those guys who you always think should be 38 or so, but never seems to age? He's the one I'm most confident of, even if he was injured last year. He's a junkballer of sorts, and I know he's good for 10-14 wins no matter what. Hopefully he'll be closer to 15 or so, especially if he gets bumped up in the rotation for whatever reason.
4) Aaron Heilman - This could be his big breakout season, the one we've all been waiting for since he came into the organization a few years ago. He was lights out in the second half last year when he was in the bullpen. Hopefully he's gonna bring that same stuff to the starting rotation this year. If not, we're sunk.
5) Victor Zambrano - Remember when the Mets traded Scott Kazmir for this clown. Yeah, me too.

Bullpen - Always a crapshoot of sorts, but they've got Billy Wagner closing and Chad Bradford in there, so it should be better than the last couple years. They really need to bring back Turk Wendell though.

Conclusions and Predictions - This team is going to live and die by the health and well being of its starting pitching. I'm not too confident in it at this point though, and thats why I really think they need to make some sort of deal for a big name pitcher. Maybe they can package one of the outfielders and some prospects to Oakland for Barry Zito. If not one of the elites though, they need to get a serviceable arm, sooner rather than later. If they can do that, or if the rotation somehow stays healthy, I can see this team winning 90 to 95 games, and winning the NL East. If not, they're gonna see another 80 win season.

Who's down with the G-O-D?

2006-02-17T11:12:00.000-05:00

As some may know, February is religion month in the PeteforAmerica Book of the Month club. Don't worry, I'm reading neither the Book of Mormon nor "The Ten Offenses" by Pat Robertson. Instead, I just finished liberal evangelist (apparently not neccessarily a contradiction in terms) Jim Wallis' "God's Politics", and I've just begun Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses".

So, I'm going to dedicate today to a review of "God's Politics", but stayed tuned, because my "Satanic Verses" commentary next week promises to be a doozy.

"God's Politics" is easily summed up by the subheading, which says "Why the Right gets it wrong, and the Left doesn't get it". He's sharply critical of both sides in the so called culture wars, but trains his biggest guns on the Religious Right. He points out that in American history, religion has been an agent for progressive change. Whether it was the movement to abolish slavery, improve the lives of the working class and immigrants, the campaign for civil rights or to end the war in Vietnam, religious groups have taken the lead and used the Bible to appeal to American's best instincts.

Today though, many on the left are afraid of the influence of religion in politics (the notable exception being the religiosity of liberal African-Americans). Instead of arguing that the Bible spends far more time calling man to combat poverty, war and inequality; liberals try to keep religion entirely out of politics. Wallis argues that the secularization of the Democratic party has ceded religious righteousness to the right wing, and therefore has also given up control of our national political process.

He argues that the Democratic party is far more intolerant of pro-lifers in their midst than the Republican party is of those who profess pro-choice sympathies. This is an excellent point, its hard to name a single Democrat who is proudly pro-life. On the Republican side, I can pick out Rudy Guiliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arlen Specter just off the top of my head as three prominent Republicans who have strongly supported abortion rights throughout their political careers.

Still, Wallis is far more critical of the Republican party than he is of the Democrats. He argues that the war in Iraq is an abomination of religious principles and the fealty of the Republican party to corporate interests is in direct contradiction of the Bible. The hateful attitude of many on the right towards homosexuals violates the teachings of Jesus, and the fixation of the religious right towards opposing gay marriage and abortion leaves out the majority of the lessons in the Bible. Wallis trains his fire on President Bush quite frequently, claiming that Bush has paid lip-service to his faith based initiatives, while starving those programs of funding and federal support. He believes that the rhetoric Bush used after 9/11 was directly in contradiction with biblical teachings, and that Bush's "We're right, they're wrong" attitudes have exacerbated terror and plainly represent bad theology.

What Wallis is looking for is a return of liberal faith-based politics. Instead of countless Democratic candidates who shun spirituality, he wants to see more candidates who aren't afraid to embrace religion. He believes Democrats should wave the Bible whenever the Republican party cuts Medicaid or food stamps or student loans. The Democratic party should recite the teachings of Jesus whenever the Dick Cheney defends the right of America to torture. He doesn't oppose the politicization of the Bible, but he wants the Bible to be correctly politicized.

As a devoutly secular liberal, I approached his arguments with a healthy dose of skepticism. On the one hand, Wallis admirably stands up the often un-Christian right. On the other hand, people who use religion to justify their actions have always scared me.

I would never want to replace a dogmatic and theocratic right wing who control the country with an equally fundamentalist left. I don't have a problem with people taking their inspiration from the Bible, and trying to apply its teachings to their politics. While I've always been a bit of a moral relativist, deep down, I really do believe there's some type of absolute right and absolute wrong. The problem hasn't been people trying to find those absolutes, and basing their lives after them, but rather, the belief that you have found them. Thats my complaint with the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict these days, not that it rejects moral relativism, but that it embraces dogmatic infallibility.

OK - That was some sort of tangent.....

I'll end this review before I turn it into a personal statement of belief. I will say though, its a fine read (although a tad repetitive at times). Its very thought provoking and intellectually honest, and unlike the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell type Christianity, Wallis' religious convictions appeal to our better instincts and not to our deepest fears. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it.

An Open Letter to Google.com

2006-02-15T22:08:00.000-05:00

For the longest time, I truly believed that your company was the good Lords gift to the internet. Even in the early years, when you didn't have any real features beyond searches, and yahoo had all that extra stuff, I was still drawn to your website. The simplicity of the site, the lack of pop-up or flashy banner ads, and the quirky "I'm feeling lucky" features all drew me to your world. As you expanded into other ventures, like "Froogle" or "Gmail", I was excited that you were challenging Microsoft for control of the Internet and thus, the world. While not a stockholder myself, I thought it was really cool that your stock's kept climbing and climbing, to making joe computer programmer into a millionaire. For a while, I thought I was in love with you, but now I worry that it was just a naive infatuation. You were my first internet love, and now I'm afraid that its going to leave me jaded forever.

You see, like a husband whose wife had to "work late at the office" for far too many Friday nights in a row, I've begun to grow suspicious of you. First it was the news that you track and store every Google search from every computer. I explained it away to myself as something that you just needed. You needed to keep tabs on what I was doing, so you could more accurately target me with with the things that I needed. When you stood up to the government and refused to turn over those records, I felt vindicated, and hated myself for having ever questioned you.

But then, you shamelessly caved to the Chinese governments demands for censoring your search engine. This was a red flag to me, like finding another man's boxer shorts in your wife's Dodge Stratus. I asked myself "Surely Pete, there must be some reasonable justification for such an action". But try as I did, I couldn't understand what honorable reason you could possibly have to do such as thing. The only reason anyone could think of was a business based one. You violated the core principle of the "information superhighway", that knowledge be openly accessible to people who sought it out. The internet is supposed to be the ultimate marketplace of ideas, and by hopping in bed with those fake-commies from Beijing, you've consented to only selling government sanctioned bananas and apples. You looked at 100 million Chinese internet users, and you caved, plain and simple.

Still though, I guess I can't hold it against you forever, MSN and Yahoo had already done the same thing, and you were just trying to keep competitive. The quality of your product was still golden to me, from gmail to google earth to your news services, you knew what you were doing. But today, I was attempting to use your new gmail chat feature, and I was bombarded with messages from you telling me that you were having problems with the chat function, and that I should try to be patient. Now, I've always found patience to be a virtue, but since this was on top of all of your other misdeeds, I could only reach one conclusion: Google has failed me.

I'm going to give you two weeks, and then I'm moving to Yahoo forever.

Good Day -

Pete

So much to say

2006-02-14T21:56:00.000-05:00

Just a few random thoughts for the day.

1) Loyal Pete for America readers have probably noticed that I haven't updated the site quite as much during the day. Well, I hate to break it to you, I'm no longer quite so bored at work. They'll actually got me doing things during the day now, and since I was imparted with a good ole Catholic work ethic as a child, my daytime obligations are towards the chosen people, not all of you. Don't worry though, I've grown used to writing my musing down on this site, and so I'm going to keep it up as much as I can.

2) I'm was gonna pass on the whole "Dick Cheney shot a man ordeal", except I really liked this joke from the Daily Show:

Jon Stewart: "Yes, as you've just heard, a near-tragedy over the weekend in south Texas. Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt at a political supporter's ranch. Making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting VP since Alexander Hamilton.

"Hamilton, of course, shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering. Whittington? Mistaken for a bird.

Ah, how far we've come......

3) I'm sorry for the whole rant yesterday about New York, it broke the vow I made on the very first PeteforAmerica entry to keep the angst to a minimum. Nevertheless, I stand by the core of my argument. I really think that New Yorkers must be a bunch of whining whimps who need constant encouragement to even get up in the morning and endure such trying hardships. Or, at the very least, thats the way the media here treats them.

4) I don't know quite where they've been all my adult life, but I've fallen in love with a rock band for the first time since I discovered Bush's 16 Stone album in 6th grade. The band is called Marah and this is their website. I just bought two of their albums from Amazon, so I don't know too many of their songs yet. From what I've heard so far though, my favorite songs are "Formula, Cola, Dollar Draft" and "The Closer". Also, although I've never really gotten into his stuff, I like that Steven King is a fan.

5) I hate Olympic sports with judges. NBC's spent so much time during these Olympic games trying to describe the absurd new scoring system which is apparently less absurd than the old system, which was entirely subjective. Either way, I can't stand it when I'm watching women's figure skating or the half pipe and the person who I think did the best ends up with the worst score. Incidently, the person who I think is doing the best often comes from one of my favorite countries, notably Sweden, Poland, Australia or Switzerland. Thats neither here nor there though.

Thats about all I've got for the day, and since I combined five thoughts into one post, I'll probably be running short on material by Thursday or so. Therefore, you've been warned that you're probably gonna get something along the lines of my painful Pauly Shore tribute piece from Saturday.

Get over yourselves

2006-02-13T19:17:00.000-05:00

Let me start by saying that I like living in New York City, and for the most part, I like New Yorkers. Sure, there are things I'm not really down with, like the tremendous economic stratification of city as one example, or the Yankees as another. For the most part though, I think this is a great place to live.

I believe that living here gives you more exposure to different cultures than nearly any other place in the United States. Since I've moved here, among other things, I've had Ethiopian, Vietnamese and Afghani food. I've gotten to know people from Vietnam, the Caribbean, and several African countries. I've gone to incredible museum exhibits and even seen an art gallery or two. I think people here are not just tolerant of others (because you don't just want to "tolerate" people", but they're genuinely accepting of other people and lifestyles. I love the fact that I live in a liberal city that has always been on the cutting edge of gay rights. I think its great that New York is the only city in the U.S. to have its own public university system. New York City has an extensive public transportation system and truly is the cultural capital of the United States.

But if there's one thing thats always driven me raving mad about New Yawkers, its the absurdly arrogant self-centerness of the people who live here. There just seems to be this sense of New Yorker exceptionalism that I absolutely can't stand. I guess its always been there, their sense that Times Square is the center of the world and all. They've always had this sense of elitism that they don't need to pay attention to what goes on in the rest of the country or even state, because they live in New York. But in the past 5 years, I think its taken on a whole new level of arrogance.

The attacks on the World Trade Center were both a horribly traumatic experience for people who lived in New York, and one of the city's proudest moments. The firefighters, policemen and everyday people who risked their lives to save others rightfully became national heroes and icons.

Unfortunately, thats been cheapened by the masturbatory self-reverence the city's had in subsequent "hardships". In the six months I've been here, its manifest itself two times.

The first time was during the transit strike of December. Everywhere I looked, there were testaments to the hardy toughness of New Yorkers enduring such difficult circumstances. The news was filled with tributes to New Yorkers who were committed to "keep on keeping on" and other nonsense like that.

I had been here for less than 3 months at that point, so I'm pretty sure that I walked six miles each way not because I was a real "New Yorker", but because I needed to get to work. Also, I thought it was kinda cool to walk to work and brag about it to friends.

My point is, the "only a New Yorker could endure this hardship" tributes given to people for getting to work each day seemed to imply that if the good citizens of say, Cleveland were faced with the same situation, they'd probably just curl up in the fetal position and quit their jobs. In fact, Philadelphia went through an eight day transit strike a couple months earlier, and yet they didn't seem to feel the need to congratulate themselves on being so tough.

The second time was yesterday and today, in the aftermath of the "Blizzard of the Milennium" we went through this weekend and this morning. On the local Fox morning show, they interviewed some dude with a thick south Brooklyn accent, asking him why he was so committed to shoveling out and getting to work this morning. He responded with something along the lines of "Whatta ya want me to do, I'm a New Yorker, this is what we do. Time don't stop just because we got a snowstorm, people from the city here do what they gotta do to get to work". The reporter took over and gave us another tribute to the toughness of New Yorkers in during times of hardship, before throwing it back to the anchors. The anchors then reminded us of the spirit of New York during 9/11, the blackout, and yes, the aforementioned transit strike.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, a two foot snowfall had just been compared to September 11th! Beyond that though, how much do people here need to have their ego's stroked before going out and shoveling their cars? Plus, don't most people ride the subway, and thus don't even need to shovel anything to get to work? If those are things that people here need to get going in the morning, I can tell you that they'll never cut it in Buffalo or Oswego.

So my message to my fellow New Yorkers is to get over themselves, stop believing in a New Yorker exceptionalism, and realize that 95% of the country would react in the same manner as you do whenever there's a big snowstorm or blackout in their hometown.

And yes, I fully realize some goons from Coney Island are gonna beat me senseless now.

A tribute......

2006-02-11T19:01:00.000-05:00

From 1992 to 1997, I was in love with the cinematic work of Pauly Shore. It closely mirrored my love for the films of Jim Varney (Ernest goes to wherever) from 1989 until 1993. I never got to see Mr. Shore's movies in the theaters, for whatever reason, but would rent them at the Video Cave the moment they came out on VHS. Eventually my affections for Pauly subsided, what with the precipitious decline of his career. However, the body of work speaks for itself, and I'm going to pay tribute to Pauly Shore by running down his five greatest film roles.

5) Jury Duty (1995) - Pauly plays Tommy Collins, an unemployed slacker who gets jury duty. When he discovers that the jury pool receive five dollars a day and get free room and board. In order to maintain the cushy conditions he's grown accustomed to, he drags out the proceeding and inadvertantly discovers that the defendant isn't the real killer. He finds that fella, and wins Tia Carrerra's heart. Most remember it for Pauly's signature "Say hello to Judge Ito" line.

4) In the Army Now (1994) - David Alan Grier and Andy Dick join Pauly Shore in this timely comedy about a conflict with an Arab dictator. Pauly plays "Bones", an unemployed pacifist water purification expert who joins the army for the included room and board. During our conflict with a Saddam-like dictator, Bones and his motley crew emerge as the unlikeliest of heroes. Two thumbs, way up!

3) Biodome (1996) - Pauly's last great film, all subsequent works pale in comparison. It was also his first and (sadly) last professional collaboration with one of Baldwin brothers. He and Stephen Baldwin play the characters Bud and Doyle, respectively. The two are a couple of slackerThe star studded cast also contained dance club superstar Kylie Minogue in one of her finest film roles. Admittedly, it was the most outrageous and irritating role of Pauly Shores career, but the combination of Stephen Baldwin, environmental themes and Tenacious D give it the number three spot on this list.

2) Son in Law (1993) - This movie provides my motivation for this cinematic run-down. It was on TBS this afternoon, and as Pauly Shore films are my achilles heel, I coudn't turn away. Pauly reaches deep in his comedic bag for this one, instead of playing an unemployed slacker, he plays a slacking college student. Shore's character is "Crawl", who embodies everything I think Los Angeles probably holds dear. The movie's other star is "Becca", a nice girl from South Dakota who goes to UCLA for college, and becomes close friends with Crawl. She invites him home for Thanksgiving, and the culture clash commences. Crawl and Becca fall in love, the family gradually accepts him, and the culture wars in our country are resolved. Way to go Paulie! My favorite character is the father, Walter, who is played by the recently deceased Lane Smith best known as the editor of the Daily Planet (good catch Sarah) on TV's "Lois and Clark", but thats neither here nor there.

1) Encino Man (1992) - The finest film about cavemen made in 1992, bar none. The starring cast is were all at the tops of their respective games. Pauly Shore, Brendan "Airheads" Fraser, and Sean "Rudy" Astin all turn in award winning performances. This was the film that started it all for me, and prompted my entire 5th and 6th grade class to say such things as "budddddy" and "the cheese is old and moldy, where is the bathroom?" We all recall the premise, that two stoners find a caveman in their backyard, and introduce him to modern American life. Probably my favorite film of the early 1990's, which is depressing in its own right, but that neither here nor there.

OK, Dan wins

2006-02-11T16:35:00.000-05:00

Money magazine did it for me. I'm still not entirely convinced, and I'm naturally suspicious anytime President Bush pledges money for the environment.

On the other hand, I've never been one to oppose funding for science, so I hereby flip-flop on this issue, and agree with Dan.

And yes, I've offically become obsessed with this.

Whats the Deal with Ethanol, anyway?

2006-02-09T21:29:00.000-05:00

In a comment about my State of the Union analysis, Danny Duett challenged me to do more to research the effectiveness of ethanol, particularly the system found in Brazil. This struck me strongly, because Dan has always been one of the biggest crusaders against corporate welfare, and in my estimation, ethanol has been one of the biggest hand-outs in recent US history. Given his sterling reputation on such matters, I did decide to dig a little deeper. I realize that the following is going to strike 9/10ths of the people who read this as incredibly boring, but whatever, skip it and go read some more about Busta Rhymes or something.

The biggest criticism I had with President Bush's State of the Union environmental plug wasn't that he pushed ethanol, it was that he neglected to mention conservation. There will be no solution to our collective energy problem until we make a commitment to reduce our energy output. This could come from hybrid cars, better windows and insulation, or wearing more sweaters.

However, Danny didn't challenge me on conservation, he challenged me on ethanol fuel. So, I've done a little research, and concluded the following.

While Dan makes a good point that it takes government investment and support to encourage the development of alternative fuel sources, the fact is that over seventy percent of the United States yearly ethanol subsidies are deposited straight into the coffers of Archer Daniels Midland, one of the largest corn production companies in the United States today. The money President Bush pledged during his Station of the Union isn't going to research and development, its going to go into the corporate piggy-bank of ADM.

There have been a number of different estimates about the current efficiency of ethanol production in the United States, but the production of ethanol from corn takes anywhere from 20% to 29% more energy than the ethanol actually produces. Most of the cost of production of ethanol comes from harvesting the corn, transporting the corn, and creating and distilling the ethanol, functions that all primarily utilize gasoline as their energy source. Simply put, if you were just using ethanol as the fuel source to produce more ethanol, you'd run out of fuel pretty quickly.

But Dan didn't challenge me on the inefficiencies of the American system, he challenged me to look at Brazil. He's largely correct, because of large government subsidies and an efficient national network of ethanol production, Brazil has developed an economically efficient model of alternative fuels. Brazil uses sugarcane to create ethanol, which appears to be easier to convert to ethanol. Unfortunately, the United States doesn't have much land thats suitable for sugarcane growth, so we'll probably never look that direction.

Two points about the Brazilian model though. First, the decision to use sugar to create ethanol has had tremendous negative environmental consequences. In order to produce enough sugar to fuel the nations automobiles and busses, the government permitted the wholesale destruction of large swaths of the Amazon rainforest. The clear-cutting and burning of the rainforest to make room for sugarcane has increased air pollution and the heavy government subsidies on sugar production have caused farmers to focus upon that industry, to the detriment of other less environmentally destructive agricultural crops.

Also, Brazil is a comparable size geographically to the United States (8.4 million square kilometer as compared to our 9.6 million square kilometers), with about 80 million fewer people than the United States. However, the United States has approximately 15 times the amount of automobiles as Brazil. One of the reasons Brazil was able to convert the majority of cars used to ethanol fuel was that they simply didn't have many cars on the road. Setting aside the efficiency issues, the US simply cannot produce enough ethanol to make it a primary fuel source for American consumers.

My point is that there's no silver bullet solution to the global energy crisis. Any reasonable solution to our problem has to include all of the weapons in our collective arsenal. Alternative fuels (although maybe not ethanol) have to continue to be researched and made more practical. We need to increase our use solar, hydro-electric and wind power. We need to continue to research fuel cells and other technology that we won't see for a number of years. But President Bush was missing the boat by not mentioning conservation. If we're going to decrease the amount of greenhouse gasses and reduce our dependence upon Middle Eastern oil, we're going to need to reduce our energy consumption. We're going to have to build more energy efficient buildings, mandate that our automobiles get a minimum of 50 miles to the gallon, and vastly expand our public transportation networks.

Maybe it was over bad pierogies

2006-02-08T16:57:00.000-05:00

If I were much of a betting man, which on occasion I am, I would've bet on approximately 350 other well known rappers to be involved in a shooting scandal before I would've put money down on Busta Rhymes.

While he may have claimed on the song "Dangerous", that This is serious/We can make you delirious/You should have a healthy fear of us, I'll admit it, I never took him too seriously. Busta's always seemed to be the court jester of the hip hop movement, whose boys with everybody, but didn't really seem to have much actual cred on the streets.

I mean, he seemed way too content with rapping really quickly and wearing ridiculously flashy garbage bag looking things in his videos to have much of a hard edge.

I guess I would've lost that bet though. Evidently Busta's been having some sort of beef with G-Unit, and this resulted in the shooting death of Busta's bodyguard at a video shoot in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Which brings me to my next point, Greenpoint's a primarily Polish neighborhood, what the hell were they doing filming a hip-hop video there for? Was the video going to feature Busta and Mary J. Blige purchasing kielbasa and pierogies from a street vendor? Were they going to be crying before a Pope John Paul II shrine? After this shooting death, will this video ever see the light of day? This could be the biggest let-down for Polish American since Edmund Muskie lost his bid for the Democratic nomination in 1972.

And now, Busta's not cooperating with the police, even though he witnessed the murder. Instead, he's promising to bring justice for his bodyguard's family. This can only mean that he's going to hunt down the killer himself! Can you imagine him going straight to 50-Cent and demanding that he turn over Tony Yayo and the other responsible members of G-Unit? Can we make a reality TV show out of this? VH1's gotta get moving! Somebody write up a petition, I'll put it on the site, I swear!

Lunchtime in Westchester

2006-02-07T23:15:00.000-05:00

"So I decided that after years of frustration in the dating scene, I'd give it one last try by dipping my toes in the online dating scene... And now I love it!"

No, this isn't a case of me quoting myself, although that guy from the E-Harmony ads has such a convincing sales pitch that I might just have to throw my hat in the ring. Instead, it was uttered by a 49 year old social worker at lunch on Tuesday at noonish. The ensuing conversation between yours truly and four middle aged women was easily one of my most surreal and disturbing encounters in recent memory.

Once a week, typically on Tuesdays, I abandon the concrete jungle of New York City for the simpler life in Pleasantville, NY. By abandon the city I mean getting up an hour earlier so I can make it to Pleasantville at a reasonable hour (its a long set of train rides from Brooklyn). And by the simpler life in Pleasantville, I mean wandering around the JCCA Residential Care facilities (imagine a mix of summer camp and juvenile hall, where all the guards or counselors are instead either streetwise social workers or absent minded psychiatrists with thick central european accents), trying to find the workers who have apparently been desperately seeking my guidance, but then choose to disappear the moment I arrive.

Anyway, every trip to Pleasantville has had an interesting story so far, last week I was approached by a group of youngsters asking if I could purchase some "grass" in the city for them and bring it up with me next week.

This week, after providing some guidance on how to properly enter progress notes, I was invited to lunch in the staff cafeteria at one of the facilities by some charming middle aged women. Having no other plans for the lunch hour, I accepted and went to the lunchroom with them. On the menu today; sweet potatoes, mixed veggies, and pork chops. I'll admit it, the swine surprised me a bit, after all, I do work for a JEWISH organization. Anyway, so I passed on the chops and took my time building one of the finest iceberg lettuce and sweet potato salads known to mankind.

When I finally sat down next to my new lunch companions, one of them, an outspoken social worker who we'll call "Sarah", was telling the group about her date from this past weekend. Feeling like she had to include me in the discussion and bring me up to speed, Sarah turned to me and said "Listen Pete, I'm a 49 year divorced mother of three," and then gave me the line listed above.

At which point she began telling the group about her date on Friday night with a 62 year old Jazz musician from Harlem. I lost focus for a while, as I was trying to remember if I saw any applesauce at the salad bar, but then my attention immediately returned when I heard her say "fellatio". Apparently this fella was a tad bit too forward and was hoping she was a full-service kinda gal on the first date. Sarah wasn't having any of it, which prompted a round of congratulations from the girls. They then began clucking to one another about some of the horrible men they've dated (apparently being a female social worker increases your chances of being single, lonely and bitter at fifty by about four thousand percent)

Shortly thereafter, they turned their fire upon me. They started by asking me if I was single, and then followed it up with a question about whether or not I was dating anyone. It took me a moment, but I realized that in the middle aged woman world, "single" means "not married" and "dating someone" means "single". After I replied in the negative, I was quizzed on my relationship history (I tried to evade with the "I just haven't found that special someone" card, but to no avail). These women then decided that since I've failed to find my soulmate in 6 years or so, I must be in desperate need of their advice.

The advice they gave me was unremarkable at best, things like "Every woman likes to be showered with gifts", or "If a woman is telling you about her financial situation, she's only looking to marry you and take you to the cleaners", or "Nothing drives a woman wilder than a man wearing Axe body sprary".

OK, I made that last one up, but if one of them had said it, I would've choked on my chocolate milk, which, in case you were wondering, did come in the school lunch pint size. And no, I didn't drink it with a straw, because only losers drank their chocolate milk with a straw in Martin Van Buren or Martin H. Glynn elementary schools.

The women eventually grew tired of the advice game, and proceeded to share some more stories about horrible men. Some of the stories involved married men, some involved sex acts that until recently were illegal in Texas, and most made me want to either throw myself through a glass window or pee my pants from a mixture of laughter and discomfort. I can't repeat most of these things (I try to keep PeteforAmerica a family friendly site), but I will say that these women shocked and appalled me at times. When I sat next to a priest on the Metro North ride back to Grand Central Station, I couldn't shake the feeling that having listened to them was sinful and that I should ask him if he was open to me confessing these sins to him on the train.

I didn't , we talked about poverty, evolution, the war in Iraq, and marriage in the priesthood instead. I figured I'd go with the safe and shallow topics for the train ride, and that made for an entirely different story that could get posted one day this week if I run entirely out of other material.

You got a Problem?

2006-02-06T16:06:00.000-05:00

So if I were to run into Joe Pesci anywhere, I'd be fairly careful not to push his buttons. Maybe its all the SNL skits with him and a big bat scared me away, or the fact that he has a streak of 68 straight movies in which he plays a nutball, but the bottom line is, I'm scared of him. I mean, if the only role the guy's gotten in the 20 years since "My Cousin Vinny" came out has been that of a homicidal maniac, odds are he's a little crazy for either one of two reasons.

1) His reality has been altered by playing too many sociopaths.

or

2) He can't be trusted playing anything but a sociopath because he actually is insane.

Regardless, he's gotta be like a wild animal; you don't look him in the eye, you don't provoke him, and you absolutely stay inside your vehicle. Instead, some clown from Boca Raton took his picture and got what was coming to him.

Free Joe Pesci!

RIP Ms. Friedan

2006-02-06T11:44:00.000-05:00

I've always considered myself to be an enlightened guy as far as gender goes. I guess I grew up in a progressive household, my dad makes dinner and does the laundry just as much as my mom, and while there were certain divisions of labor (my dad would almost certainly mow the lawn or shovel the snow whereas my mom would probably clean the bathroom or organize the kitchen), there weren't any Victorian era separate spheres in my upbringing.

Both of my parents have always worked, and since they were both busy with their working lives, it only made sense that they'd share the load of domestic chores. In most of the United States today, I tend to think this situation is fairly normal, and certainly nothing exceptional. Granted, in many two parent households, the wife/mother still handles alot of the domestic work, while the father/husband does manly things like chop wood, fix cars and hunt bears with pistols. But still, most wives and mothers work today, and no one would accuse them of being a bad spouse/mother because they choose to work outside the home.

Forty-five years ago, women faced an entirely different situation. A fair number were college educated, but very few actually worked. Women gained the right to vote in 1920, but in the fifteen years since the end of World War II, women were more confined to the household than they had been since the end of the 19th Century. Many had worked in factories, offices, or played baseball with Rosie O'Donald, Madonna and for Tom Hanks during the war, but once it was over, women were shoved out of the steel plants, skyscrapers and baseball diamonds to make way for the returning men. Because this was also the greatest period of childbirth in our nations history, women were pretty busy booming out those babies, and it wasn't a big deal for a few years.

As the 1950's drew to a close, many mothers grew tired of making grilled cheese sandwiches and ovaltine for their bratty kids, and began to view their situation as less than ideal. They spent their entire day pretending to be June Cleaver, serving their child and husband's every need, while doing very little for themselves.

Now, having been in the working world for all of about 8 months now, I don't really see that situation as being too terrible. I mean, I'd probably jump at the opportunity to knock someone up so I could volunteer to be the stay at home dad for at least a few years. I imagine it could get fairly tiresome eventually, especially if it was frowned upon for me to ever return to the daily grind, but I'm certainly not there yet.

Nevertheless, many women were profoundly unhappy with their lot in life, but felt powerless to change it. Socially, their family would be looked down upon if they were to return to the workplace. Additionally, many employers simply wouldn't hire women, no matter how intelligent, educated, or qualified they were for the job. Middle class American women were stuck in a "Cult of Domesticity", and there wasn't much they could do about it.

And then, in 1962, one woman freed women everywhere with a remarkably timely book called "The Feminine Mystique". It opened like this:

"The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfcation, a yearing that women suffered in the middle of the 20th Century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night - she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question - 'Is this all?'"

Yesterday, Betty Friedan passed away without much fanfare, certainly nothing compared to that given to Rosa Parks, Corretta Scott King, or Natalie Holloway. This is a shame though because she was as important to equal rights in this country as any civil rights leader. After publishing this best selling book that ignited the feminist movement, she helped found the National Organization for Women and helped promote the rights of of women in the workplace and in the home.

I first learned about Betty Friedan in my "Women in American History" class as a sophomore in college, and yes, I was the only guy in the class. I read "The Feminine Mystique" for class and it was easily my favorite book of the semester. Yes, I am aware that I'm so in touch with my feminine side that I'm actually lactating right now.

Regardless, I think Betty Friedan's death deserves more attention than its been given, so I decided to expose the thousands of loyal Pete For America readers to her (just in case you haven't heard of her).

OK, the hundreds of readers.

OK, the dozens of readers.

Fine, all six of you.

Bird Flu and the Super Bowl

2006-02-04T14:39:00.000-05:00

I know that every loyal peteforamerica fan has been eagarly awaiting my Super Bowl pick, so we'll get to that in a moment.

But first, in the interests of full disclosure, I must first warn you that I'm sick and my head may not be functioning properly. My mom was warning me just the other day that I've got to stop sleeping in the same bed with the farm animals, particularly those two chickens that I recently bought from Vietnam and Turkey. If only I had listened..

I started feeling ill yesterday morning when I woke up. I had the chills, the cough, etc. As a working stiff though, I had to make my way to work. So I had some breakfast, took a few advil and departed on the once weekly trek to Flatbush, my health and spirits lifted by the effects of OJ, ibuprofen and growing anticipation for the Millrose Games at MSG after work.

Unforunately, by 1 o'clock I felt like dying, and barely made it through the day. I had a smokers cough, a Parkinsons-eque shake and at lunchtime, Nicole Richie's appetite (fair enough, that was a canned joke, I apologize). I met up with my dad and sister for dinner though, barely ate anything, took more advil and attended the Millrose Games. Advil's such a wonder drug, because without it, I never would have tolerated, much less enjoyed, the nations premier indoor track meet.

I went home after the meet, slept for 10 hours, and woke up feeling like I had been hit by a car.

So, in general, my weekend going well. Plus, this is day 4 of 90 of my adventure without health insurance, so lets hope this doesn't turn into pneumonia or something. Also, I don't get sick days until April, so one way or another, I'm getting to work on Monday.

The silver lining to this is that I haven't gotten paid in a month (JCCA withholds your first paycheck and gives it to you when you leave the company. So, while I get paid next Friday, my available discretionary funds for a Friday or Saturday night are running pretty low. This little bout with the plague is the perfect excuse to not spend money at the local watering hole, much less leave the apartment.

Anyway, as for tomorrows game, which I hope to pull myself together for, I've got mixed emotions. My dad lived in Seattle for a bit, and developed a fondness for the Seahawks, so I've got some familial loyalties pulling me that way. On the other hand, I know a number of Pittsburgh fans and I'd like to see them lose their minds Sunday night. Plus, Pittsburgh's such a better football town than Seattle, the Pacific Northwest is a little too cerebral for such a sport.

On still a third other hand, I think that aside from the occasional trick play, the Steelers play one of the most boring brands of football I've seen. Its like watching the NFL equivalent of the mid-90's Cleveland Cavaliers or New York Knicks, who damn near killed basketball by perfecting the art of winning 70-66 borefests. On a fourth hand though. the Seahawks are a bunch of namby pambies.

Hmmmmm....

I'm gonna go with the Steelers, simply because I haven't picked them yet this postseason and I think they're due after so many near-misses.

Classic Middle Child

2006-02-02T09:10:00.000-05:00

I figured if anyone from Full House was going to turn to methamphetamines, it would've been either Kimmy Gibbler or Joey Gladstone.

Instead, Gibbler's apparently getting a graduate degree in international relations and Gladstone's skating partners with Nancy Kerrigan (and doing a damn good job at it, might I add).

Meanwhile, Stephanie got so hooked on meth that her former castmates had to stage an intervention. To be a fly on that wall would've been the greatest thrill of my young life.

My brush with a real celebrity

2006-02-01T11:19:00.000-05:00

You never know who you're gonna run into in New Jersey at a Nets-Pistons game.

Nope, a bigger celebrity than Bruce Springsteen.

Bigger than Bon Jovi.

Bigger than Danny DeVito, James Gandolfini or Jay Leno.

Much bigger than Tara Reid, Brittany Murphy or Whitney Houston.

Just a tad bigger than Joe Pesci.

Probably a little bit smaller than David Copperfield and John Travolta.

So who was it?

I've got two words for you - John Amos

Thats right, the star of Good Times, Roots and a pivotal role player in one of my favorite films of the 1980's Coming To America.

My roommate and I were walking around the Continental Airlines Arena in bustling East Rutherford, New Jersey last evening about 45 minutes before tip-off. Outside one of those overpriced lounge type restaurants that they always have attached to sporting venues stood a solitary older black gentleman.

He approached us and said "Excuse me, do either of you have the time? Please?" He said the word "Please" with a surprising amount of desperation in his voice, as if he thought we weren't actually going to give it to him.

Geoff responded quicker than I, and said "Six forty-four"

The man thanked us and went into the restaurant.

As we walked away, I said "I'm pretty sure that was a celebrity of some sort".

Geoff agreed, we were quiet for a few moments until he said "Coming to America!" in a loud voice.

I immediately got extremely excited and even called Danny Duett to tell him I had a chance encounter with the legendary father and fast food restaurant owner in that film.

So you're probably asking yourself, "How did this brush with celebrity change Pete forever?" Only time will tell my friends, only time will tell.

I will say this though, he didn't look so hot. He looked like he's packed on a few in recent years (although perhaps it's in preparation for one of those weight gain/weight loss efforts that always seem to win people Oscars). Also, he had a scruffy greyish beard that didn't complement his strong features too well.

Despite his less than stellar physical appearance, it was still a great thrill, right up there with when I met legendary Albany weathercaster Steve Caporizzo.

Is that the best you've got Georgie?

2006-02-01T00:34:00.000-05:00

I know people have been anxiously awaiting my response to the State of the Union, so to keep all six fans of peteforamerica happy, I'll put a few reflections down on the site here.

First off, when was the last time the President of the United States stood before Congress and failed to tell them that the State of the Union was strong? Carter was a notorious pessimist, but can you imagine him standing there and saying "My fellow Americans, the State of the Union is weak, atrophied and pathetic"? I'd wager to say that ever since good ole boy Woody Wilson revived the practice started by George Washington, no President has failed to say that the "State of the Union is strong". Have we always been strong? Will a President ever be man (or woman) enough to tell us when we're falling apart? Probably not. But I digress.

Secondly, as a preface to my comments, in the interests of full disclosure, I didn't watch the State of the Union. Instead, I went to the Nets-Pistons game in Jersey for free. I mean, I'm a dork and all, but when you get a chance to see an elite NBA matchup (and what turned out to be a great game) for free, you don't pass that up. However, to reinforce my nerd credentials, I did read the transcript as soon as I got home. Besides, reading it may actually be better; it allows me to analyze what he wrote rather than watch him say it and get all hot and bothered.

Honestly, it was the first time that I've seen (or read) the State of the Union and not been entirely horrified by what was presented. Sure, he resorted to a little code-worded gay-baiting towards the end, he defended the whole illegal wire-tap thing some more, he ignored the biggest boondoggle of the year (Katrina and New Orleans) and didn't even acknowledge the whole corruption story going down, but still it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

Look, he's President for three more years, so we can all expect some crappy executive decisions that keep us entangled in quagmires, continue to pillage the environment, and ignore a "Christian" nations obligation to lift up the less fortunate. But if we look at things in terms of how far he can screw things up, he didn't really draw big pictures in this speech, which means he's afraid that he won't be able to get much done. One of the only concrete proposals he laid forth were in regards to reducing our dependence on foreign oil, which is something that I'm down with.

I think his comments on the environment were the most interesting part of the speech (maybe its the grassroots days talking though), so lets break it down point by point.

1) He acknowledged we were dependent on foreign oil, but didn't bring up more drilling! Thats astounding, I'm literally astounded.

2) He promised to invest more in zero-emission coal (how is that possible, can anyone explain this to me?), as well as legitimate renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. Kickass. I'm a little iffy on the nuclear part, particularly because I'm not sure if burying nuclear waste in a mountain side really takes care of the wast issue, but whatever.

3) He mentioned hybrid cars, which is also astounding. On the other hand, he started talking about some half-cocked scheme to convert corn to ethanol, and to use that to fuel our cars. Ethanol has always been, and continues to be, a net energy loss. It takes more energy to create ethanol than ethanol gives off when used. Its a giant waste of time and resources to pursue this, and the only reason you see ethanol all over the place is because the first Presidential Caucus is in Iowa and a candidate can't win there without pledging allegiance to the corn.

4) He failed to mention conservation, which, given that the administration still isn't ready to come to grips with the reality of global warming and evolution, isn't entirely surprising. Still, its not like telling Americans to recycle more proves that you're a namby pamby liberal, does it?

Aside from that, it seems like a pretty straightforward and boring speech. No axis of evil this time, no false allegations of uranium, etc. We got some of the typical stay-the-course rhetoric on Iraq, but also a Clinton-esque promise to put 70,000 more math and science teachers the classroom.

All in all, I'm not very scared, but that just might be me getting naive in my old age.

Hungry 7th Grader, Will Fight for Food

2006-01-30T15:35:00.000-05:00

Throughout the years, I've often told people that I've never gotten in a fight. I suppose I wear it as a bit of a badge of honor, because fighting (most of the time) is really dumb and never really leads to anything good. However, there is a story buried deep in my past which may soil the carefully crafted self-righteous image that I've created for myself on this "blog".

The setting: The Nabozny family basement, circa 1995.

Protagonists:

Pete Nabozny - The host of a rare Nabozny basement sleepover. An undersized 13 year old with a soft spot for pepperoni pizza.

Adam Rothenberg - Starting point guard of St. John's Catholic Youth Organization basketball team. Managed to win that spot despite classic small town Catholic anti-Semitism because of good court vision and an outstanding first step. (Also, lack of actual anti-Semitism because of Kinderhook's progressivism and the fact that the Church merely sponsored the team and took no real role in running its affairs) Recently hosted an outstanding bar mitzvah with a kicking party somewhere in downtown Albany.

Scott Schrader - National AAU Tae Kwan Doe champion on multiple occasions. Famous among the denizens of Ichabod Crane Middle School for his epic fights with David Cooper and his skill on the soccer field.

Antagonists:

Andy Scharoun: Twenty years old. Manager and chief pizza maker at LaBella's pizzeria in the Kinderhook Village Square. Older brother of a schoolmate of the protagonists. Known for his sadistic sense of humor and blue-collar strength.

Jay Rochelle: Sixteen years old. Recently hired delivery man for LaBella's pizzeria. Backup point guard for the JV basketball team the previous season. Known for his good looks and pretty boy demeanor.

LaBella's staff: Classic bunch of potheads and dead-enders. Always on the look-out for a good time, particularly at around closing time on a Friday night.

Jack "Dad" Nabozny: 39 year old father of four. Career accomplishments include being the 6th man for the top rated high school basketball team in the state (with two future NBA 10 day contract players) and having painted his own house. Also, had a heck of a beard and hold's lifetime running PR's that none of his children will ever approach.

Plans for the evening: Hard to remember, probably scrambled porn, wrestling matches and doing each others make-up. But you know how adventurous middle school boys can be....

The Story:

It was about 9:30, and we were all getting pretty bored. As three adolescents in the early throes of puberty, we quickly grew hungry and decided to go to LaBella's pizzeria in the Kinderhook Village Square. We promptly left the home without telling my parents, even though we weren't planning on doing anything mischievous or disorderly.

We arrived at LaBella's a little bit before 10 o'clock (closing time for a pizza place in a small upstate town). We had plans to get a couple pies and a soda apiece. Unfortunately, as 13 year olds, we apparently had a very limited understanding of the American market economy, because none of us had a single cent on us. We quickly grew despondent until we recognized one of the guys working behind the pizza counter. It was none other than Andrew Scharoun, the older brother of our schoolmate Ben Scharoun. We quickly engaged him in conversation to try to get all the leftover slices when the closed for the night. He didn't find our efforts very agreeable, and instead made a proposition to us.

He said "We'll give you 3 slices apiece, if you can beat me in a fight." Apparently something about the prospect of beating up a bunch of little kids appealed to him, and after the initial shock of the statement, we all began evaluating the pro's and con's of the offer.

The three of us huddled up in a booth and deliberated intensely for a few minutes. On the one hand, we were fully aware of the fact that he had approximately a foot or so on each of us, was a fully grown adult, and probably had some fighting experience. On the other hand, we really wanted pizza, we figured that our numbers might overwhelm him, and we had a tae kwon doe national champion (albeit among 12 year olds). Worst came to worst, we figured Scott could sweep the leg and we'd be all set.

So, we agreed to fight him, and the three us went to the restaurant area of the pizza place, where staff moved tables and chairs to set up a fighting area. Our strategy was for Scott to face him head on, while Adam and I surrounded him and jumped on his back or something.

Unfortunately for us, we didn't take into account his extreme advantages in size and strength. He quickly identified Scott as his primary foe, and neutralized him with the time test manner of grabbing and throwing him against a wall. Adam and I cowered back away from him, intimidated by his brute strength. He grabbed me, picked me up, turned me horizontally, and slammed my back into one of those small trees that semi-classy restaurants sometimes have in the dining areas. I distinctly remember crying out in pain, and then being thrown into a pile of chairs that the workers had moved into a corner. I decided that the wisest maneuver at this point was to stay down and play dead. Plus, I was terrified that I had become paralyzed. Scott had gotten his second wind though, as he pounced on Andy's back while I was flying through the air into the aforementioned chairs.

Scott managed to bring him down by kicking out his legs while clinging to his back, but Andy cleverly responded by throwing him over his head and onto his own back. He then threw Scott into the other pile of chairs. Adam took this opening as an opportunity to run away, and managed to run through the pizza place and out the front doors. Andy pursued him outside though, picked him up, and dropped him head first into an empty garbage can (just like they do in movies).

The "fight" was over, and we laid broken and beaten. Andy bathed in the platitudes of his friends for beating up a bunch of adolescent kids and resumed closing up for the night. After few minutes of listening to us whimper in the corner, I think he started to feel bad for us, so he gave us a couple slices apiece, and told us something to the effect of "come see me again in a few years when you've learned how to fight." We were instantly grateful for the gift our former tormentor had given us, and we sat down in a booth to compare stories of the fight and enjoy our pizza.

Scott then announced that he was thirsty, and told me to go ask the guys if we could have some drinks too. I complied by relaying the request, but Andy said, "Sorry guys, the fight was for pizza only."

I asked if there was anything we could do, and almost on cue, a deliveryman (Jay Rochelle) entered LaBella's. He had completed his deliveries and was prepared to cash out and head home for the night. Andy turned to him and said "Jay, you've gotta fight these three kids. If they beat you, then they get free drinks."

Jay quickly agreed, for no other reason than to prove his manhood to the older guys at the pizza place. Adam, Scott and I were hesitant at first, vividly recalling the thorough shellacking we had received at Andy's hands. But then Scott pointed out that Jay was barely bigger than us, and he kind of looked like a wuss. Plus, we were really thirsty.

The fight with Jay wasn't much of a contest. We had learned that the last thing you can do in a three on one fight is to act timidly towards your opponent. So Adam circled around Jay while Scott held down front. I didn't really have anywhere to go, so I jumped back and forth nervously. Then, almost on cue, Adam jumped on his back while Scott dove into him. Jay quickly fell to the ground and tried to throw his two attackers off of him. Feeling left out of the action, I basically jumped into the air and onto our hapless victim. My knee landed directly in his groin, and he screamed out in pain. The fight was over, Jay threatened me for having fought dirty, but was too ashamed by his co-workers laughing at him to do anything substantial.

Having exerted ourselves athletically, we all selected Gatorade as our drink of choice, bragged about our victory, thanked Andy Scharoun and the LaBella's staff, and departed for home. We were in high spirits the entire walk back, despite possessing serious limps and bruised vertebrae. Unfortunately, waiting in family room was none other than BlackJack "Dad" Nabozny. We had been gone for the better part of two hours, and we were evidently a pretty sorry sight for him to lay his eyes upon. He sent Scott and Adam downstairs and began interrogating me over our whereabouts. At first I told him that we had simply went to LaBella's for some pizza, and we lost track of time there. That explanation didn't explain our unkempt appearances and noticeable limps, and he called me out on my apparent lie (which, while factually correct, did withhold some critical components.)

I decided to come clean, and told him the entire story, except for the part about me kicking Jay Rochelle in the crotch (it did reflect poorly upon my character). Unfortunately, my father didn't believe a word of it, and probably doesn't do this day. I figure he probably thinks that we snuck out with plans to get in a fight with kids from school (if that was the case, I think I would've played the role of Ponyboy from the 1970's classic novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton)

Anyway, the question is whether or not I've ever really been in a fight. I stand by my statement that I haven't, for two reasons.

1) There were no punches thrown.

2) There was no animosity towards one another, the scuffle was merely for the entertainment of others and an attempt by a some poor 7th graders to put food on the table.

However, if anyone disagrees with me, by all means, call me out on it. Just to warn you though, I've got a propensity for kicking people in the groin, so don't disagree too strenuously.

God's Senator

2006-01-30T13:22:00.000-05:00

You know, everytime I convince myself that maybe the Christian right isn't insane, I read something like this. Its a long article, but its also pretty interesting, and it makes you realize how frightening some of these folks are.

Senator Nutcase

The ultimate Springsteen Album

2006-01-26T19:10:00.000-05:00

I know that if there's been one thing that people out there have been clamoring for, its for me to put together my ultimate Bruce Springsteen greatest hits album. And yes, I have taken a class to prepare me for this moment, so treat this like scripture.

1) Thunder Road - An amazing opening song to the best rock album by an American musician. The version off his live album is inspiring.
2) Tunnel of Love - Title track from an underrated album. People were expecting another Born in the U.S.A. type album, but those people were stupid.
3) Downbound Train - If I were laid off from my job at the factory, I'd listen to this song about 350 times before sticking my head in an oven. Probably the best song off the Born in the U.S.A. album.
4) Growing Up - America's first glimpse at the brilliance of the Boss, even if no one bought the album.
5) Rosalita - A tad long, but a great song nevertheless. Tells you all you need to know about Jersey, or it tells me what I want to imagine about Jersey.
6) Badlands - In my opinion, one of the five greatest songs in rock history.
7) Born to Run - nuff said.
8) Brilliant Disguise - Who would've figured I'd pick two songs off Tunnel of Love.
9) Racing in the Street - If my feet weren't (possibly) permanently destroyed, I think this song would get me ready to run 70 miles a week, nearly all of after work each day.
10) Atlantic City - Bruce's first accoustic work. I gave a girl the Nebraska album once, then she broke up with me. Hmmm, I'll have to make a note of that.
11) Waiting on a Sunny Day - Some people don't like The Rising as an album. I'm not one of them.
12) Darkness on the Edge of Town - At some point after Born to Run, Bruce got sorta jaded, so he released the album that this song shares a name with. Lets hear it for cynicism!
13) The River - Again, the version from his first live album gives me goosebumps nearly every time I listen to it. I'm not kidding. Just a great song, albeit off a mediocre album.
14) Devils & Dust - I decided to replace Reno with this one due to Anna's gentle prodding, and because its better.
15) Secret Garden (Jerry Maguire Remix) - Yes, I'm kidding, although this song makes me giggle.
15) No Surrender - ok, so it didn't win John Kerry the election, but it came damn close. Screw you Ohio!

OK - I realize its kinda dorky to make my own Bruce Springsteen album and publish it for all 3 of you who read this thing to see. However, I would like to emphasize that I held back from getting too pretentious by not listing his b-sides that are amazing, like The Promise, Where the Bands are and anything off the Ghost of Tom Joad album. Plus, I've done a Martin Van Buren fact and fiction section and my musings on Ariel Sharon, so clearly I'm not writing this blog to pick up babes. Unless you're a babe and you're into that sort of thing. If so, I've gotta warn you, I'll probably ask for your hand in marriage pretty quickly.

Next week I'll make a list of Bob Seger's best songs for Terence's satisfaction, but it will be an empty list, so it shouldn't take nearly as long.

What is it that you actually do here?

2006-01-25T10:18:00.000-05:00

Yup folks, this is the computer program I work with - CONNECTIONS.

A few thoughts:

1) Yes, he's absolutely right about the program. Its horribly out of date, incredibly slow, and frequently crashes. The entire hardware set up is antiquated in nature, and lacks enough servers to handle the 15,000 users statewide. The programmers who designed it and are responsible for its upkeep refuse to acknowledge that anything could possibly be wrong with it, and don't try to make it simpler, more intuitive or even the least bit user friendly.

2) Yes, the State has sunk a disgusting amount of money into it, but honestly, that wouldn't bother me that much if they had come up with a decent product. Sometimes you need to spend some money to get something good. Unfortunately, they spent alot of money to develop a system that already needs to be replaced.

3) All kidding aside about me being personally responsible for Nixmary Brown's death (given that I was helping implement "Build 18" when the child protective investigators screwed up royally), the fact is that Connections had little to do with this specific problem. The problem with the Administration for Children's Services isn't its organizational structure or computer software, its problem is with the people that it employs.

I worked with them for 5 months, and I discovered that some are hardworking, idealistic, and passionate towards their jobs. Unfortunately, an equal number keep their jobs because its basically impossible to fire them. They cover their asses, and unless they're grossly negligent, its impossible to discipline or sanction them. For month's on end, I'd hear people say "I'm not doing that, thats not part of my job description", regardless of whether or not it was something critically neccessary to do. I mean, these are abused children's lives we're dealing with, does it always need to come down a turf battle about job descriptions? I've always been down with unions, but the fact is, at ACS, they just protect the workers who deserve to be kicked to the curb.

The management ranks are even worse. Does ACS really need something like 200 Deputy Commissioners? Do major corporations have 200 Vice Presidents? ACS management is full of political appointees who have no idea how to manage a child welfare agency. They sit around at meetings and talk about the need to solve important problems, and then schedule more meetings where they can continue to talk about the need to solve problems, without ever actually tackling to problem at hand. Its absolutely maddening.

One of best measures of a civilized society is how it protects those who can't protect themselves. Obviously being a child welfare investigator exposes someone to the humanity's worst impulses, and its extremely difficult work. However, we desperately need to get better people at all levels of ACS and other child welfare agencies around the country, or we're going to continue to fail to prevent the disgusting shortcomings of a flawed society.

Buncha Fascists

2006-01-24T15:51:00.000-05:00

Now they tell us we can't go without pants on the subway.

Whats next, chastity belts for unmarried virgins, courtesy of the NYPD?

Celebrity!

2006-01-24T12:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday seemed like any other day, until I became a citywide celebrity.

I spent most of the day traveling along some of cities finest subway lines. I had meetings all over the city, and in total, rode the F, the R, the A, the 2, and the 4 trains for three and a half hours yesterday. On one such trip, getting off the 4 train at Wall Street (coming from the Bronx), I was stopped abruptly by an attractive young lady who asked "Excuse me, could you help me for a moment"? Being the gentleman that I am, especially with attractive young women, I obliged.

She then asked me "What do you think of bed bugs"?

I immediately had a flashback to the previous Friday and my encounter with the crazy 6th Avenue man. I responded with a wary voice "What about bedbugs?"

The girl, realizing I was weirded out for some reason, then identified herself as a reporter for New York City's finest free daily newspaper, the Metro. She wanted to know what people on the street thought the city should do about the bedbug epidemic thats sweeping Manhattan and threatens the other boroughs.

I stammered out some half-witted answer about disinfecting moving vans and not letting old mattresses get mixed with new ones, fully realizing that a clever or witty response would have been far better in the situation. Clearly I've lost a step or two in fielding questions since my SA President days. Of course, she was a tad better looking in my eyes than that Jeff Keesing character.

She then took my picture, and asked me for some personal information (name, age, neighborhood). I engaged her in some meaningless small talk about bedbugs and doing the person on the street segment for the Metro, and we went our separate ways.

I figured immediately that I wouldn't end up in the paper, because she told me she'd asked a large number of people for comments on bedbugs, and given that I didn't say anything interesting, I'd be one of the first people cut.

This morning though, I got off the A train, picked up my free paper from the free paper dude outside Dunkin Donuts, opened to page 10, and saw my ugly mug in all of its glory.

If anyone would like to get their copy autographed, I'll be here at 120 Wall Street until 5, but you may want to get here at least an hour early, what with the lines and all.

Championship Game Picks

2006-01-21T18:11:00.000-05:00

Lets see if I can redeem myself.

Steelers vs. Bronco's: I'm picking the Bronc's for two reasons. One: Jake Plummer's beard is far more impressive than Big Ben's. Roethlisberger's beard looks like something I could grow. Two: They're playing at a mile high elevation, which means the Bus can't possibly make it to the line of scrimmage without passing out and requiring oxygen.

Carolina vs. Seattle: I think Carolina is going to win, but I'm picking the Seahawks anyway. Lets go Seattle!!!

Bigots and Subways are like Oil and Water

2006-01-20T16:33:00.000-05:00

Early this morning, when I was making the epic trip from Brooklyn to the Bronx to meet up with some sociable social workers, and had settled into a seat on the 2 train listening to my iPod and reading Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities(January's pick for Pete's Book of the Month club), a potentially homeless (isn't it great when you can't really tell) middle aged man seated next to me peered over and asked me a question. I couldn't make out what he was saying, what with the headphones on and such, so I took them off and said "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

He had violated rules number one and two of proper New York City subway travel.

Rule #1: Never make eye contact with a stranger on the subway. Spend your time reading a book, magazine or subway advertisement. If you are unable to do so, look either upwards or down at your feet.

Rule #2: Never speak to another person on the subway unless absolutely neccessary. Neccessary speech includes, "you're standing on my foot sir", "excuse me ma'am, but you're blocking the door", etc.

However, I had violated rule number three.

Rule #3: Under no circumstances should you look at or respond verbally to a person whose sanity is still undetermined.

Nevertheless, I had responded, and so he repeated his question. He said, "What do you call 6th Avenue?".

Although I was fairly sure that it was a trick question, I fell for the bait, and said "ummm, 6th Avenue".

To which he responded, "Good, even though you don't look like much of a New Yorker (is it really that obvious? Do I have Kinderhook written on my forehead?), you don't call it Avenue of the Americas. Do you know why they call it Avenue of the Americas?"

I replied "Didn't I read about you in the New York Times a few months ago? Something about a crusade to get the official name changed back to 6th Avenue?"

He said "I don't know what you're talking about, but alot of people think its a shitty name for a street". He followed that comment up by exclaming quite loudly "Anyway, so its called Avenue of the Americas because that commie LaGuardia decided to pay tribute to those (ethnic slur that rhymes with sticks) in Mexico and Puerto Rico!"

At this point, I visibly recoiled. I had made the mistake of engaging a potentially mentally ill bigot on a subway train that was probably about a third full of hispanics. Now, if he had been a cat lady who just wanted to talk about how she prefers black kittens with white paws and bellies to calico kittens, I may have been sitting next to someone who smelt of urine, but I wouldn't be in nearly such a predicament. Hell, I've even fallen for a cat lady once or twice (the old lady whose nurse bought us Miller High Life for shoveling her driveway in the 19th Ward comes to mind).

Several thoughts raced through my head.

1) Had people heard him? Since he seemed to be a bit of a loudtalker, this was a given.

2) This man engaged me randomly, does he do this normally? How does a fella survive in New York City with John Rockers vocabulary?

3) Does anyone think I'm somehow boys with this guy, and thus, as a fellow bigot or bigot sympathizer, worthy of a subway ass kicking along the lines of Streets of Rage.

Then I began plotting my escape from an ass kicking.

1) Should I publicly scold the man? I ruled that out because you don't mess around with a guy who looks like he's got nothing to lose.

2) Should I ignore the comment and start talking about anything that pops into my mind (again, cats)? Nope, then people will think that I'm his mentally ill friend and thus deserving of an ass kicking.

3) Should I put on my headphones and ignore him? I decided that might provoke the nutjob.

So, when the train stopped a few moments later, I got up, hightailed it out the door to get in the next car down, and let the man face the three tough looking hispanics standing opposite our seats on his own.

The joys of being a New Yorker!

From the heart

2006-01-19T16:05:00.000-05:00

Dear FOX Television –

Every once in a while, in between Temptation Island, When Animals Attack, and The Swan, your network manages to develop some outstanding television. Shows such as Married With Children, The Simpsons, Beverly Hills 90210 and The Adventures of Briscoe County Junior have inspired legions of fans to believe that dreams do come true.
For 20 years now, you’ve been a leader in developing both cutting edge programming while still appealing to Americans unquenchable thirst for trash television.

Some watch FOX to enjoy its intelligent and stimulating programming, shows like the Ben Stiller Show and the first 6 seasons of The Simpsons. Others watch your network because of its unending commitment to appeal to the lowest common denominator, first through shows like Cops and then later with Joe Millionaire. Unfortunately, given the fact that the masses prefer junk television to actual good programming, it appears that one of the finest shows in your long history is going to leave us before its time. Arrested Development is down to its final two episodes, and unless the smut peddlers at Showtime pick up the show, its brilliance will be extinguished forever.

Now I know that I’m only one man, and not a particularly important one, but I’m willing to propose a compromise. If Arrested Development is allowed to finish its third season in its entirety, a mere 12 more episodes, then I’m willing to dedicate my network television watching to the FOX network exclusively for the next 2 years. Yes, that’s right, I’ll begin watching American Idol, Bones and Dancing with the Stars. I’ll sit through War at Home, American Dad and Stacked. Hell, I may even begin to enjoy them. OK, fair enough, I already enjoy Stacked. The point is that I’m willing to dedicate at least 4 nights a week from 8-11 towards FOX’s programming, regardless of its quality. I’ll even invite friends and throw “House” house parties.

What do you say, 12 episodes for 2 years of dedicated FOX watching?

Sincerely yours (if you play your cards right)-

Peter Matthew Nabozny

Ain't no power like the power of the people

2006-01-18T16:30:00.000-05:00

I wrote last week on the need for a civilized confirmation hearing for Sam Alito, and as it seems that opposition towards him has hardened a good bit, I figure I'll write a bit more on the subject. Democrats are torn between opposing him because their interest groups want them to, and opposing him because they're terrified Roe v. Wade and some other things will be overturned. While I'm not thrilled of the idea of having what seems to be an entirely dispassionate and heartless man(strip searching ten year old girls is ok, etc.) on the Supreme Court, I also think we could do a lot worse. For all of the distortions of the truth and disastrous actions of his Presidency, you can't say that Bush snuck this one by us. He said up front that he was going to appoint conservative justices like Scalia and Thomas, and he's done just that with Roberts and Alito. George Bush has been entirely intellectually honest on this one, and we're just going to have to live with the consequences. Besides, Alito seems to be a accomodationist towards the other two branches, which leads me to the point of this post.

In the long run, maybe having a court of Alito's won't be such a bad thing. At some point, after the civil rights and privacy gains in the two decades between 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education) and 1973 (Roe v. Wade), liberals stopped trying to reach out to people and persuade them. Liberals figured that they could always win in the courts, and got lazy. Conservatives were fired up, and the left sat contently upon its successes. For the past half-century, the courts have always been the harbinger of progressive change in this country, taking the decisions out of the hands of the people. Obviously the courts have a responsibility of protecting minority rights (minority in many context's) from the masses (Carolene Products footnote number 4, shout out to Tyll Van Geel!), but ultimately, maybe large scale social change shouldn't happen because a few judges find a penumbra somewhere.

Maybe gay marriage should be legalized not because a court decides its illegal to ban it, but because majorities of Americans decide that if two adults love and care for each other, they deserve to be able to codify that through marriage.

Maybe abortion should remain legal not because of a questionable court decision, or precedent based upon that decision, but because vast majorities of Americans support the right of a woman to decide whether or not she wants to be pregnant. If legal abortion was simply a matter of a law on the books, Americans would know the importance of voting for pro-choice candidates.

If these momentous social issues weren't decided in the courts, maybe we'd be able to reach a national consensus on what we believe as a people, and maybe those of us who are socially progressive would rediscover the abilities to persuade, to appeal to people's better instincts, and ultimately pass legislation to codify those rights we find appropriate. It would take longer, there wouldn't be quick fixes, but we might end up better for it.

Or, maybe we should fillibuster, its alot easier for me to say these things as a middle class, heterosexual, white male.

Puerto Rico!

2006-01-17T20:18:00.000-05:00

Before I write any Puerto Rican stories, lets run over my list of goals and whether or not they were accomplished.

1) Win my airfare in the casino's: I was on pace after one complete day. I was up a hundred and forty dollars when I went to bed on Saturday night. Unfortunately, on Sunday came the rains, and went my luck. Carribean Stud Poker is a vicious game, but I lost most of my money on straight poker. A couple bad hands, and I end the weekend down about a hundred and fifty.

2) Learn rudimentary Spanish in three days time: Well, I now know what Gasolina truly means, thanks to Daddy Yankee and the prostitute I met at the Parrot Club bar.

3) Find a job implementing the Puerto Rican version of the Connections program: Boo New York!

4) Stop the Navy's use of Vieques: wait, so you didn't see the news?

5) Acquire Chlamydia: See number 2.

Belated Playoff picks

2006-01-17T20:05:00.000-05:00

If I had bothered to write my 2nd round playoff picks, I obviously would've picked everything correctly.

Or, I would've picked one game correctly.

I figured the Seahawks could take care of the Redskins, because Washington can't manage to move the football at all. Washington's offense is physically painful to watch.

I also would've picked Indianapolis over Pittsburgh, because I underestimated both the Steelers offense and the Colt's ability to self-destruct in the playoffs. Hopefully, next year that Peyton's teammates let someone pull a "LT on Joe Theisman" type hit on him after he tossed his offensive line under a bus.

I would've picked the Bears over the Panthers, mainly because I'm still convinced that Carolina's not that good. Unfortunately, I now think I know nothing about football. How can Steve Smith be so good? I just don't understand it.

I would've picked New England over Denver because Brady's always been clutch in the playoffs while Jake the Snake Plummer has always choked in big games. I guess I bought into the whole Patriot mystique a bit much.

Rochester Subway!?!?!?

2006-01-13T10:35:00.000-05:00

http://rocwiki.org/Abandoned_Subway

Apparently Rochester, NY had a fairly extensive subway system at one point. In fact, according to wikipedia, at the time of its development, it was the smallest city in the world to have a subway system. Now, I guess I'm not surprised Rochester had a subway system, after all, it was a pretty kicking city at one point. Hell, the city has a NBA championship to its name (whoop, Rochester Royals)

What I don't understand is how I never heard about this in all my time in college. UROC apparently went on some adventure of the subway, and despite knowing a few of those chaps, I never heard a word about it.

Also, how the hell did Coach Izzo never mention the Rochester subway to us? He was constantly making up things that were less interesting than this thing that actually existed.

How did Joe Lust never discover this underground tunnel on one of his adventures? I think the entire team ran by entrances to this tunnel all the time when we were doing city loop runs, but we never thought to explore it. I'm at a loss here.

Debtors Prison

2006-01-12T11:32:00.000-05:00

I've never really liked debts, moneylending both ways has always made me uncomfortable. Collecting on debts that a friend owes you can prove to be an extremely awkward dance, and when I owe someone else money, I feel obligated not to spend any money at all until I've paid them. Only, I'm really bad with obligations, and forget that I'm in debt to them altogether. So then they call me on it when I'm dropping obscene sums of cash on Big Buck Hunter II at the local bowling alley.

When I was a junior in college and living at 15 Grandview Terrace (in the big bad 19th Ward), none of us had much money to speak of, so our debts to one another were usually very small and could be easily resolved. We refused to resolve our debts in the traditional method though. Instead, given that we were all friends, and had a healthy infatuation with the Millennium Mini-Mart across the street, we'd settle our debts through the purchasing of 40 ounce beverages. If Dan owed me 4 dollars, he owed me 2 forties. If Dan owed me 4 dollars and I owed him 2, he didn't owe me 1 forty though. Instead, he owed me 2 forties and I owed him 1 forty. It was wonderful way to resolve debts and put poison in your body.

Things are more complicated now though, mainly because if someone owes me 50 dollars, the old way would end up killing me many times over. However, the principle of the matter is still there, I'd prefer that if someone owes me a hundred and fifty dollars in a series of 50 dollar withdrawals from the Bank of Pete so they can take a girl out to dinner (cough Alex Voetsch cough), they don't write me a check for a hundred and fifty dollars, but instead spend the money on something else. For example, I could use a bike so that I can exercise despite having broken feet.

Also, did you know that debtors prisons were abolished over the course of the 19th century in the United States because people eventually concluded that they were the stupidest thing imaginable. People couldn't get out of jail until they paid their debts, when obviously they couldn't raise money to pay their debts unless they were working and not in jail. It made sense to end the practice, and we all patted ourselves on the back, until lovely Pennsylvania decided to return some good old fashioned personal responsibility to the penal code in 1991.

The funny thing is that if someone was jailed for debts to the state (parking tickets, taxes, whatever) all they had to do to get out of jail is pay an initial deposit of 30 dollars. That would give them a grace period to get back on their feet and get to work paying off their debts. Unfortunately, the kinds of people that end up getting thrown in jail are the people who also couldn't pay the 30 dollars when threatened with jail time, so a lot of them languish in jail for a decent period of time until some philanthropic citizen bails them out. It also costs the state of Pennsylvania about 72 dollars a day to keep someone in jail. So, in effect, the state was losing a lot of money on a bill passed to ensure that money flows into the state coffers.

Country Boys

2006-01-11T11:18:00.000-05:00

Two nights ago, my roommate turned on PBS and my life changed forever. Jim Lehrer revealed that Bert and Ernie actually were lovers all these years!!! The fornicating godless left just keeps on trying to push its beliefs of "tolerance", "acceptance" and "openness" upon the good sensibilities of America through the guise of public (defined as: socialist) television. I'm just not gonna put up with it anymore! Round up Lynn Cheney, we're taking down Sesame Street once and for all.

Actually, I've become addicted to a "Frontline" mini-series called Country Boys. Its a six hour series, broadcast without commercials over three nights ending tonight, and its easily the best television I've seen in a long time. The stories of these two kids are profoundly moving, particularly Chris' tale. Its alternately entertaining, frustrating, endearing, heartwrenching, and angering. I can't really adequately describe the experience of watching this show, but it does tell me how powerful of a medium television can be, and how under-utilized it is for that purpose. I think that if this mini-series was on NBC, it would change people's opinions on the plight of the poor in this countries poorest regions.

On the other hand, if Fox had gotten its hands on this show, they'd turn these impoverished kids from Appalachia into a ratings winner parody of poor people. But I digress, because it doesn't matter at this point. The last installment of it is on tonight at 9 (tell your friends to tune in). All of my faithful readers should also take the time to download and watch the previous episodes for free from the pbs website at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/countryboys/

Sam I Am

2006-01-10T14:44:00.000-05:00

Day one of my new job was quite busy, learning name, attending meetings, promising to do things I don't know anything about, etc. Day two has been quite notably slower. When work is slow, I generally just check my gmail about 45 to 50 times an hour, constantly visit espn.com, yahoo.com and nytimes.com and see if anyone new wants to make our friendship official by declaring so on the facebook.

While there's certainly plenty of news out there, what with Ariel Sharon fighting the good fight, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Bruce Sutter going to the Hall (what about the Goose?!?!), I find myself fascinated by the Samuel Alito hearings. Brace yourselves, because I'm inevitably going to write more about this in upcoming days, but I think that most liberals needs to stop having a hissy fit, take a few deep breaths, and look at the situation objectively.

Yes, Alito is a conservative, probably not as conservative as Scalia, but still to the right of Anthony Kennedy. Odds are that Alito will rule to restrict abortion, enhance executive power, and execute children and the mentally disabled. All of these things bother me, and I surely wouldn't have nominated him. However, as much as I hated it, BUSH WON THE ELECTION! When you win a presidential election, you get to pick who you want to get on the court. That's how our democracy works. The Senate gets to evaluate the candidate, weed out the insane (Robert Bork) and the incompetent (Harriet Miers), and take a vote on the matter. The threshold shouldn't be whether or not you think this nominee will agree with you on a variety of issues, but whether they're physically, mentally, intellectually and emotionally up for the job. It used to be this way, Scalia is the prince of fricking darkness and he got 98 votes for confirmation. Some Senators still understand this, Russ Feingold is about as liberal as a Senator gets these days, and he voted to confirm John Roberts. But others seem so intent on turning everything in a partisan bloodbath that they don't realize that imposing an ideological litmus test on every court nominee is going to have nasty repercussions in 3 years when the Republicans start targeting President Hillary's nominees. I'm not saying they need to vote for him, but this is the Supreme Court we're dealing with, lets try to keep this thing civil and dignified.

Random notes

2006-01-09T18:23:00.000-05:00

Since I have the ability to go back and change posts, and no one really reads this thing anyway, maybe I should go back and edit all of my playoff picks. That way, next year I can point to my ability to flawlessly pick football games, convince somebody at the Daily News that I'm Biff Tannen without the sports book, and get a job writing a biweekly column that also provides me with free tickets to a variety of sporting events. A man can always dream......

So I've been reading David Brook's "Bobo's in Paradise" recently, and I have to say that I'm really enjoying most of it. Brooks comes across as a tad pretentious and condescending at times, but for the most part he just cleverly weaves some of the absurdities of modern life into a cogent thesis about educated America today. For the unfamiliar with the book, Brook's argues that the classic struggle between the bourgeoisie and the bohemians (beats vs. businessmen, hippies vs. nixonites, john denver and dee snider vs. tipper gore, etc.) has ended, and the two have synthesized together to create a new class, bohemian-bourgeois, or bobo's. Bobo's take the best of both worlds, they've tried to sell out and keep a conscience. That's why its considered decadent to buy an incredibly expensive car or stereo systems these days, but its entirely appropriate to spend an absurd sums of money on shaker chairs, organically grown flaxseed, and fair trade coffee. Bobo's believe their position with Google doesn't make them part of the rat race, but instead allows them to achieve some higher purpose of information egalitarianism. The massive bohemian population of the 1960's has managed to assimilate itself into corporate and capitalist America by becoming trying keep a conscience while they unabashedly conspicuously consume. Yada yada yada. Anyway, the part that interests me the most is how he analyzes the eating habits of the bobo. As someone who has spent large portions of my life setting up dietary restrictions for myself due to environmental, humanitarian, and moral reasoning, I really liked the following quote:
"Members of the educated elite attach more spiritual weight to the purity of our food than to five of the Ten Commandments. And so we insist upon natural ingredients made by pesticide averse farmers who think globally and act locally."
That entire section of the book has made me wonder whether I've simply replaced my frequent religious apatheism with a code of secular and ethical dietary and lifestyle convictions. Is this how Jewish dietary restrictions came about a few thousand years ago? I've always heard that there were sociological reasons for all of these religions having these guidelines, usually as a result of sanitary concerns. I've also always thought that vegetarianism, organic only eating, locally grown only eating, etc. is a luxury that the the spoiled upper middle class can enjoy, but I'd never seen it articulated quite so well as Brooks manages to.

Also, I started my new job at the Jewish Child Care Association today, and I don't think I fully grasped quite how many Jewish holidays there are until we started scheduling staff meetings for the upcoming year, and had to reschedule a full third of them because of a variety of holidays. I guess 3,000 years of beautiful tradition from Moses to Sandy Koufax means you need to commemorate, mark, or celebrate about half of the days of any given year. This is gonna be great!!!

Wildcard Playoff picks

2006-01-07T14:02:00.000-05:00

I don't bother with the spreads, I've never really messed around too much with that.

Cincy vs. Pittsburgh - While Cincinatti hasn't been to the playoffs since Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" was topping the charts, I think everyone's underestimating them this week. Besides, Pittsburgh hasn't been looking too sharp, and Big Ben's got a broken finger. The Steelers simply won't be able to keep up with the Bungles offense. I pick Cincinatti.

Redskins vs. Bucs - Washington's gonna run all over Tampa Bay. The Washington Native Americans have been pretty hot, and I just don't think that Chris Simms can take the Bucs too far. Plus, he seems like a bit of a namby pamby. I pick Washington.

Giants vs. Panthers - As long as Eli doesn't have to throw the ball more than 6 times during the game, there's no chance of the Giants losing. Tiki's just gonna take care of business. I pick the Giants.

Patriots vs. Jaguars - Lets look at the matchups here. Leftwich vs. Brady. Taylor vs. Dillon. Belichick vs. Del Rio. I think its pretty clear that the Patsies are gonna smoke the Jags. I pick the Patriots.

A better question than which teams are gonna win this week is Terence's favorite query these days. Could the top 11 runners on the University of Rochester Cross Country team from 2003 (average weight: 150 pounds) stop Jerome Bettis (approximately 270 pounds) from scoring a touchdown with no blockers in a kickoff situation? I honestly don't think we would've been able to. Some claim one of us would be able to jump on his back, slow him down, and thus allow the rest of us to pile on top. I just don't see it happening. You have to remember he may not be known as a particularly fast running back, but he would still be one of the top short sprinters in the NYSCTC without even trying. So, I'm saying we wouldn't be able to run him down from behind. That means that we'd have to take him on head-on. I think we've all seen him destroy linebackers in goal line situations, and I think that he'd probably kill one of us if we tried to tackle him head-on. It may be emasculating to realize that 11 fully grown men can't take down 1 man, but whatever, its not like runners had much macho street cred to begin with. I pick the Bus.

MVB is A-OK

2006-01-06T13:16:00.000-05:00

When I look out upon the "blogosphere", I see people writing about everything imaginable. I can easily find teenage angst, celebrity gossip, stories about the crazy guy who propositioned the girl sitting next to you on subway ride to work, etc. What people seem to be clamoring for though, is a good posting about my boy, the eighth President of the United States; Martin Van Buren. And because I feel its my obligation to educate as a former Martin Van Buren National Historic Site tour guide, I'm going to play a few rounds of fact or fiction. This will be the first installment of what will obviously become a regular series here on Pete for America.

Number 1: Martin Van Buren was the first President born in the United States of America.
That folks, is a fact. All prior Presidents were born while America was still under tyrannical British rule. Mattie was born on December 5th, 1782, which gives him a special distinction in all of our hearts.

Number 2: Martin Van Buren was sired by the dashing and infamous Aaron Burr.
This vicious fiction was propogated first by political opponents of Van Buren's during his days in the rough and tumble New York State Senate. It was then mucked up again by the dastardly author Gore Vidal in his novel "Burr". The claim was that Burr stayed at Momma and Poppa Van Buren's tavern while traveling to Albany during the later years of the Revolution, showed Maria Van Buren a hell of a night, and continued on his way. The fact is that there was no evidence that Burr ever stayed in Kinderhook, and certainly no evidence that he knocked Maria up. However, Martin's decedents did block a request in 2000 by the Aaron Burr society to dig up Martin from his eternal rest to do a DNA sample and put the enormous controversy to rest once and for all. So perhaps they are hiding something, a la Sally Hemmings.

Number 3: Martin Van Buren had a Wedgewood china toilet bowl.
If you know anything about china, which I don't, you'd know that people don't use Wedgewood china to ornament their toilet bowls. However, this absurdity is indeed a fact. You see, Martin had one of the first, if not the first, indoor flush toilets in upstate New York. In fact, people were usually disgusted by the idea of pooping indoors. Many, including the famous Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, refused to use it, and chose to use the outhouse instead. However, since indoor toilets were so new, Martin decided that he wanted to go all out on the bowl. So, he paid an exorbitant sum to have the bowl made out of one of the finest chinas in the world.

Number 4: Martin Van Buren was a bad President
This is just plain fiction. The fact is that he was a good man given a poor situation as President. The economy took an enormous nosedive just days into his term as President, thanks in large part to the deregulatory actions of his predecessor Andrew Jackson. The recession continued throughout Van Buren's Presidency, and was largely responsible for his loss to William Henry Harrison in 1840. However, Van Buren is credited with pushing through the passage of the Independent Treasury Act, which was the precursor to the Federal Reserve, and it played a large role in the economic growth of the United States for much of the rest of the century. The bottom line is that he was the victim of vicious partisan attacks, the Whigs called him Martin Van Ruin and called him a dandy. No man can surive that, just look at Jane Fonda Kerry.

OK class, thats all for today. And yes, I realize in the past 30 minutes I became the biggest dork on the internet, which places me pretty high in the running for biggest dork in the entire world.

Swayze Rapping?

2006-01-05T15:07:00.000-05:00

From the finest right wing tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch in New York City.
http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix/58897.htm

"IN what's surely the scariest development of the young new year, allhiphop.com reports that "Dirty Dancing" star Patrick Swayze wants to release a rap single. The actor, who had a massive hit in 1987 with "She's Like the Wind," told the site he's working on a new tune which will show that "rap rhythms [are] an emotional undercurrent for ballads." Swayze is no stranger to keepin' it real - he starred in Ja Rule's video for "Reign" - but didn't have a "timeline" for when his foray into hip-hop would be released"

This promises to be the best thing to happen to me since Vanilla Ice released his hardcore album.

Goals for my upcoming Puerto Rican Adventure

2006-01-05T12:51:00.000-05:00

1) Win my airfare in the casinos.
2) Learn rudimentary Spanish in three days time.
3) Find a job implementing the Puerto Rican version of the "Connections" program, and never come home.
4) Stop the Navy's use of Vieques to test really big bombs.
5) Acquire Chlamydia.

Ariel Sharon

2006-01-05T10:55:00.000-05:00

Next Monday, I begin a new career with a one of New York City's finest Jewish organizations. Therefore, I feel compelled to write on Ariel Sharon and the stroke he suffered last night. Now, my medical knowledge is pretty basic; I know that the leg bone is connected to the hip bone and all, but I think I can say with pretty good certainty that even if he survives, he's not making it back to politics. When they use terms like "massive stroke" and "tremendous bleeding in the brain", its safe to say that he's in some trouble.
The thing that surprises me most about this situation is how disastrous I think it is to the prospects for peace in the Middle East. I mean, I'm pulling for a guy who always struck me as a war-mongerer who probably ordered some war crimes in Lebanon a few decades ago. But ever since he orchestrated the Gaza pullout, and moved decisively to the center of Israeli politics, he's won my foreign policy heart.
Sharon is just getting a new centrist party off the ground, without him, it may be dead in the water. The problem in Israeli politics for the longest time is that you've got two radical yet powerful parties on separate ends of the political spectrum, but no one to represent the centrist Israeli majority.
Likud's full of lunatics like Benjamin Netanyahu, who refuse to acknowledge that no matter how many Hamas members you blow up, more are always going to take their place. If an insurgency against an occupation has been going on pretty consistently for the better part of 40 years or so, you're not going end it by force.
Obviously, the pacifist sympathies in me lie with the Labor Party, but lets face it, they don't have the street cred to make peace. Look at Ehud Barak, he gave the Palestinians basically everything, but because they thought he was soft, they kept asking for more. Sharon scared the bejesus out of the PLO, and that’s why he's been effective as a leader.
Now, Sharon's probably gone for good, and I imagine they'll be back to the conditions of 2002 again. Tough break.

Made a 50 dollar bet today...

2006-01-04T21:09:00.000-05:00

While the rest of the sporting world is focusing on the football game of the milennium at the Rose Bowl tonight, and I'm admittedly watching it as well, I've decided to dedicate my first real post to the 50 dollar bet I made this afternoon with Terence. I claimed that the Houston Texans will have a better record than the New York Jets next year. I stand by that seemingly ridiculous statement for several reasons.

Number 1) Look at the offensive position players each team will have next year: The Jets have a quarterback with a weaker arm than me at this point, if he ever makes it back (Pennington), a running back who just got his AARP card in the mail, and a lackluster receiving corps. The Texans will have David Carr, Andre Johnson, and Reggie Bush (who will clearly keep the defenses honest).

Number 2) Herm Edwards is a garbage coach. He seems like a great guy, but he's just not a good coach. He makes about 3 or 4 boneheaded coaching moves whenever they're in a close game, and that costs them about 2 wins a year. Obviously, the Texans don't have a head coach right now, but even with a Mike Martz type coach, they'd win about 6 or 7 more games than they did this year, when Dom Capers was in completely above his head. The Texans would've had 5 wins this year if they had a halfway decent coach.

Number 3) Just look at their respective divisions. They've both got a completely elite team they're gonna lose to twice (Pats and Colts), a crappy team (the Bills, and the Titans), and then two teams in the middle. I'd argue that the Dolphins have a far better core group than the Jags, including Ricky Williams with a full training camp under his belt, and a phenomenal coach in Nick Saban. The Jags made the playoffs because they played a division 3 college type schedule.

Bottom line, they'll each win between 5 and 8 games next year, I just give the Texans a far better chance at 8 than I give the Jets.

Start saving your money Terence.

In the beginning.....

2006-01-04T19:15:00.000-05:00

OK, so welcome to my "blog". I figure its about time I do this, because although I'm switching jobs next Monday, I get really bored at work, and I'm hoping it stays that way. I spend most of my time at work wishing there was someone who wrote about everything that I want to read. I figure that person's just gonna have to be me. So, given my interests, its gonna be a good mix of politics, sports and general pop culture. Not too much angst though, I'm not down with that in blogs. I'd also like to go on the record that I don't really support blogs that are self-indulgent, so I'm not gonna focus too much time on myself. And with that, PeteforAmerica is reborn.