So Wednesday night I didn't sleep. I picked up shifts for the next week since the other cook is out of town and no one can do breakfast. Some have offered thinking they can just jump in and do it, but breakfast is another beast. There's a reason why lots of chefs and cooks don't like it. On top of which, the guys wanting to do this don't even understand the concept of eggs and timing or the ways to control the speed at which they do this.

Anyway, Wednesday night was filled with me about to fall asleep and right then Ayana getting into a coughing fit. I slept, literally, 1 1/2 hours.

So I was falling asleep early and we all, collectively, decided to go to sleep early. We missed Elliot's b-day party. We'll hit Justin and Nicole later. So Ayana was watching Ice Age four? and she brought her two dog stuffed animals and two baby dolls (one of which whose head fell off and we laughed) and Jeanne told Ayana to move her dolls as we need space to sleep. To which Ayana asked, "Why? Why are we going to sleep? It's still dark outside." I couldn't stop laughing. Then Ayana, laying on top of me and kept turning my face towards her and repeating something I can't remember but it felt as if I was on acid and it was funny as hell and this went on for three minutes.

This Inane Bullshit

In today's NY Times, there's an article about how Tennessee residents can (twice a year) do a "lottery of sorts" for people needed medical treatment for those unqualified for Medicaid.

Is this what we're down to? How does this shit happen where there's obviously a problem with our healthcare system and we vote against our best interest? My family is in this. Yes, my wife (and only her) is qualified for Medicaid because she's pregnant. Our daughter is not covered by it, nor could I qualify for anything affordable. 90% of our debt is medical. If we lived in any other country, our paycheck, no matter how high the taxes, would be ours. We'd have so much money saved by now and this dude at Hy-Vee looks like an Easter egg and wondering if the v-neck sweater-vest was forced upon him.

On my walk here from the UNO library to the shuttle to here, I had "How Deep Is Your Love?" on. This song was the number one song in the nation the day I was born. I love that fact. I could say that it is the most influential and best song ever in my life, but that would be the stupid shit that makes movies like the Wedding Singer so popular, and dumb shows like "Family Guy" popular.

But with the cold weather, flurries, and strong northern winds cutting through my face, it melding with my mood and added to that ambiance...which, speaking of that, at the coffee cafe in the library (where I got a free coffee from the girl that works there and the Subway at cafe in the hospital where I work at) this dude comes in and I almost burst into laughter. This idiot had these aviator sunglasses (name brand), perfectly sculpted "indie" hair, beige pea coat, and scarf ironed and folded neatly (obvious effort went into his hipness), stupid pants and shoes. Obviously, up on us with the 2013 Spring catalog. Nothing better than expensive, cared for, shabby, indie-rock fashion. Nothing shows artistic integrity than mom and dad's credit card funding it. Only respectable fashion that utilized money (to some extent) are Mods...only then and only because they were, themselves, hardworking.

I hate Jimmy Fallon. I also hate that Jeff made me watch Fever Pitch and that I liked it at the time. And then I suggested it to a co-worker slash boss' girlfriend who loved my suggestions up until that point and told me she couldn't believe I recommended that movie to them...as if I ruined their night.

The Senate finally passed a budget, but the problem I've been rallying for proved itself in its finest form and I wish people would hold these assholes to these and start the reconstruction of the Constitutional term-limits...even for the Presidency.

No Republican votes (of course), but also four Democrats voted against it: Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Begich of Alaska and Max Baucus of Montana, all from Red States up for re-election in 2014. Why are these assholes in office? They shouldn't be worried about re-election if they were actually interested in the best interest of the country. Paul Ryan is a foe of every non-idealized economists and most Americans, yet he's the pillar which the conservative right-wingers latch onto and depend on. Why? This guy's a fucking idiot. The guy who loves Rage Against the Machine and doesn't realize that he's the problem. Or what Tom Morello said, "He's the machine we've been raging against." Or I like what Obama said where you read Atlas Shrugged when you're younger but you progress from there.

Another thing which I keep addressing was brought up on "Real Time" which had a segment from Nancy Pelosi's daughter where she went to a completely Republican, Tea Party section of New Jersey which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy and voiced their opinions on limited government and cut spending. So she ran the gamut of the main government spending the far-right-wingers are pushing for and they don't want to cut any of those. Then when pushed for their answers on what they want cut, they didn't know. One woman said she probably goes more for not cutting veterans' pay because she's a vet, which proves my other point where they only get involved in something when they're directly involved by it, such as gay marriage, medical insurance, FEMA assistance (which was another thing they didn't want cut). I said during our Missouri River flooding that any person against Obamacare at that point looking for FEMA help shouldn't get it, because it's the same type of social program that the so-called Obamacare is providing.

It also brings up the Wisconsin re-call election where Scott Walker got elected for his Tea Party platform and once the idiots there realized they were benefiting from things they were rallying against, they were all up in arms.

Old people dependent on Social Security and Medicare are against illegal immigrants and Obamacare which directly benefit those programs. Like the red-neck disabled vet down the street and other guy with the "Nobama" on his bumper all depend on these social programs.

I hope at least some people will realize what people with families and friends in both Israel and Palestine have been for all along. That despite the media (which we should all ignore) most of the people on both sides are for the two-state solution and an end to all this bullshit. US citizens couldn't even see that with the recent Israeli election where Netanyahu almost lost.

And those idiots who are saying that Obama is "finally acting like a president" and "where was he the first four years" need to realize it's idiots like them and term limits that prevent people - especially the first black president - from doing their jobs when re-election is at stake. Not too mention, he spent his first three years trying to, basically, cater to the Republicans.

A Proportional Response

Sort of getting sick of this. Yesterday at work, this African dude came up to order and asked if my name was Jackie Chan. I say he was African not because he's black, but because he's Sudanese. I know enough of certain African ethnicities to know he is. At least more than he knows I'm not Japanese but an Asian. But I just looked at him straight-faced and said, "Actually, it is," and walked away.

I really wanted to ask, "Is your name Kunta Kinte?" Or maybe, "Give us, this freedom," or whatever it was he said in Amistad...or is that outside of the proportional parameter?

I'm going to start being aggressive with this nonsense. It's getting out of control..."Someone call the fire department."

Ayana once pushed her body against my head against the bedboard and said, in a fake threatening voice, "I'm crushing your head. Menember me?" I couldn't stop laughing. Recently she hits me and I say, "Mom! Ayana's hitting me!" To which she'll do one of two things. Either stop and lightly pat him and say, "No, I'm patting." Or she'll say, "Mommy's not here."

BTW, these were posts I collected but didn't post from last week till now.

So Sunday was supposed to have snow in the morning hours leading to rain, as the weather was warming up during the day. I wanted one more good snow before the season ended and ended up getting it. My ride to work was with frozen rain with strong north winds. So the last stretch of my ride turning up 42nd from Leavenworth was me being pelted in the face by ice.

It basically snowed the rest of the day and got like 6" or so. I definitely couldn't ride home so I thought of getting Jeanne to pick me up. But as bad as it was getting, and Ayana having asthma this week, I didn't want her to have to shovel the driveway and drive out and all that, so I decided to catch the bus home, as there still were two buses for me to catch by the time I got off.

We were to stay open until 8, so I could bail right at five, but at ten till five it was decided to close, so having not even started the closing process, I had to rush through and bolt.

Cars were sliding around outside and I walked my bike through the snow and on the street past a car crash and onto Dodge street. I had to walk on the street and unplowed sidewalks all the way to the bus stop at Village Inn since the snow route kept the number 2 on Dodge. So I trudged along all the way to there and as soon as I approached it, a truck pulled up and this older fella' told me to jump in. I felt I had to, even though I was looking forward to the bus ride, but what was the alternative? I would basically say I'm staying in the snow with my bike to catch a bus rather than get a free ride, so I threw my bike in the back and hopped in.

He turned out to be a doctor at the hospital and not a killer or rapist. I told him I'd comp him a meal if he comes down while I'm there.

Speaking of comped meals, the example of what I've been railing against comes to a head with the death of Hugo Chavez. Yes, he may not have been a perfect person, but what he meant and accomplished far surpasses anything most current world leaders have.

My problem is the reaction to this guy and his passing away. Our country supports far worse people and their regimes than this guy, but if you only follow our media, you don't know or understand that. Then you only use that media outlet's rhetoric to voice your opinions on him.

Seeing all these idiots protesting any gun rights hearings in Connecticut, especially in the vicinity of Newtown, about how the government is taking their rights and "Dictators Prefer Unarmed Citizens" is not only blatantly offensive to the victims' families, but shows their stupidity and sheeplike mentality to not see outside of what's being fed to them.

Thinking about the families, this is the equivalent of them being at Matthew Shepherd's funeral and protesting gay-marriage with posters saying, "Should've not been a fag!" Or being at the aftermath of Abner Louima's sodomy debacle with the NYPD and justifying it because he's black and a potential suspect it was valid.

These people stupidly take the bad information they get and form opinions about things and somehow justify them no matter how inhumane or unethical they may be. Americans make their opinions about how bad the Taliban represses and treat women while the religious right do just as much, if not worse, to the cause of women's rights in this country. Look at how the last political debates when rape was being dismissed as something women can deal with and accept along with any pregnancy that may come of it, as it's God's will.

We say all this shit about Chavez and Ahmadinejad, meanwhile our support for Saudi Arabia goes untouched and their. Why do government is one of the most oppresive, hypocritical, and corrupt regimes out there that influence most of the other countries with despotic problems. The right and organizations like Fox News always connect some Obama crony or left-wing organizations with ties (almost always loose ties or just speculative and speculative based on nothing more than an angle towards their agenda), meanwhile Fox News and the Bush Administration has direct ties, business and otherwise, to these organizations and regimes.

How much shit do you think the Obama administration would get if his family had business ties to the bin-Ladens and he did the same dismissive approach Bush did to his family in the aftermath of 9-11? He gets so much shit for even speculative things like living in the neighborhood of William Ayers and stupid shit like that.

At least the Catholics can now feel better about not having to think for themselves anymore. I don't have enough time to get into the Catholics and their invention and history, but really, why are they Catholics? They want a pope who can pretty much get with the times. I believe that any faith that works for you is good for you. However, how can you put that much stock into something that doesn't fit into your lifestyle or belief, so much that you want it to change how they view things in order to make you feel better about your lazy worshipping?

I was at work looking the Christopher Walken-looking guy who is one of the managers of the food places. Everytime I work the weekdays he's standing around. He's paid somewhere between $60-100,000/yr to supervise people who know how to do their job. This is what I hate about corporations. They pay people insane amounts of money to supervise people to do stuff because they themselves don't want to do shit. It's such a waste of a salary...and a person. I hate non-working managers. He did push in two chairs so that takes care of some of the excess wage.

The thing is, though, that if budget cuts come, he'll keep the salary and cut a manager under him and work those other managers more.

So I've been listening to Paris 1919 a lot recently and actually researched it because I didn't really pay attention to the content. Now I have to read about what lead up to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand leading to WWI and the Versailles Conference and the League of Nations to the rise of the Third Reich and WWII. Looking forward to this. I wanted to start reading more about WWII but I don't mind reading about the precursor to it.

"One Drop"

I've never heard John Lydon's influences directly in his music, but "One Drop" you can finally hear his reggae/dub influence and it's done in a good way.

Do I Look Cool?

It's pretty rare to come across a Robert Frost quote/reference in one week, let alone the same one in different contexts aside from that dumb-ass, trite "two roads..." one. Which, considering today's world we live in, in all its forms and destructiveness, "Mending Wall" should be the one used more often. But Larry Livermore wrote an article about the new Cometbus and how Aaron's early feelings about being the core of Berkeley's society and his frustrations with being left behind by altering views by people who have come in and changed what it was or people who changed their stance for a more relaxed existence; something that's at the underlying of my feelings with living here in Omaha. Though my feelings here is there's a place that's open for acceptance, but I don't want anything to do with it. Most things are done for the wrong reasons or it ends up there and this town in general just frustrates me and I don't see it getting any better.

But in Larry's article and Jennifer Glass' Op-Ed piece in today's New York Times (about Yahoo's attempt at bringing people back to the work place to be "more productive") they both used a paraphrased Frost quote of "home is where where they have to take you in."

I talked to a friend Nick who is helping Tom build his deal down in Brownville and he told me that the main reason he picked up shop and left town was he saw the direction the Old Market was heading and didn't like it. I don't either. I don't like any direction Omaha is going. It's for the better, but I still don't appreciate it; mostly because of the mentality that goes along with it. Gentrification, money, artificial lifestyle and culture forced by trends from the coasts that they're trying to replicate five years later here, while not making any smart concessions for the burdens of the big city life here in this place. It's that Hawaii mentality where they want all the pseudo-sophistications of the mainland which does nothing for them except make them consumers of an unnecessary lifestyle while what really matters which would benefit them better, they don't want because they want to keep their "unique" image.

Braised Ox-tails w/ Garlic Confit

Reading about and cynically analyzing society, it becomes more and more annoying seeing how in this day and age everything anyone does (mostly) is programmed into us. Sitting here at Perkins (for unlimited "decent" coffee and internet access and the fact that classmates choose here) I've listened to more than enough horrible conversations and a horrible (apparently) first date with bad conversation, posed as somewhat intellectual conversation. Like how her friend who's some philosphy major or whatever and all this and that was at a bar with her and he went to the bathroom and she skimmed through his Neitzsche book and in that slim moment of opportunity, sussed out and deconstructed Neitzsche and he's not as great and deep as people make him to be. Like the depth at which he analyzes the world and the Christian view of their religion and the rest of it is all a farce, decoded by this girl in one fell swoop.

Not that I'm someone to judge things like that, but I'm cynical enough to self-consciously think about anything I say, though it's usually in situations where I'm forced to be social where I say stupid shit like that.

But our culture and its willingness to be uninformed automotons who take little time to self-reflect on things or to understand things that take more than 15 seconds to do or more non-required reading that's more lengthy than a tweet and are the end-result of a culture thriving on reality shows and tabloid journalism that lead us to this type of crap-lifestyle.

A good example of this is this sequester which, if it does what it says it will do, will disrupt life for all Americans in almost every aspect unless your well off and/or a politician. Now it could be just media sensationalism that casts its dire effects, but when doesn't our culture take everything at their behest? President Obama's "Jedi mind-meld" gaffe became the talking point on news outlets. Not tabloid/entertainment venues (like CNN), but what's pawned off as news outlets.

The more important issues aren't focused on and dissected by the news organization that should be doing that, but people don't give a shit. They're more excited by the sci-fi mess-up and the limited knowledge of what the sequester does makes them at least think they are somewhat informed. And like most Americans, they don't care as long as something doesn't directly affect them or until they realize what they were against is something they take advantage of.

It's not as if taking away billions in corporate welfare with money that usually goes to cities and states for roads, bridges (which many need fixing), and schools could actually cut the budget in the billions without raising taxes. This was a report in the Times and also an interview on "Fresh Air" about Rick Perry's aggressive tactics of going to states to find companies looking to expand and coercing them to Texas for the weather and tax-breaks. So on paper, Texas' economy is building, but the tax breaks are taking money from school which were shutting down and overcrowding others. Then other corporations then shut down when they are then taxed. Now this idiot is adamant (despite overwhelming protests from his citizens) about not giving in to Obamacare. Nor do they see behind Rick Scott who made his fortune via the health industry and won his governorship via hard-stance against Obamacare and thus gaining Tea Party support now conceding to expand Medicare with federal aid with the condition that he get a waiver to use private insurers. Privatization's alway the answer to these fucking ass-clowns. Everything's fucking business in their favor despite the nation's best interest.