Why the hell would anyone want a fajita on a hot dog bun? Yecch.

I totally feel you on that country video. I always wonder where all these jingobots are hiding, but then I remember that I'm the one who has largely withdrawn from the retail stampede that poses as American society. Actually, though these fuckers may have all the money in this country, can they really be the majority? I mean, when you take into consideration how few non-white folks have jumped on that bandwagon (unless they're "fer'ners" sporting the obligatory stars 'n' stripes in the car window), can there really be that many of them?

Say, do you think yalestar has fallen on any watch lists yet?

"Has anyone heard that thing that was in heavy Internet circulation about a year ago of Gene being interviewed on NPR by Terry Gross? Man, if you didn't think Gene Simmons was a total asshat already, hearing that interview will cement that certainty for all eternity."

Not long ago, they had an interview on NPR with C.C. DeVille-you know, from Poison? Anyway, I don't think I really had any expectations in advance of what he would sound like, but it was a far cry from the reality. He is 100% New Jersey with a nasally loud voice that stutters a lot. Really in your face kind of voice. The funniest part is that he sounds EXACTLY like a guy I work with, also from NJ, but in no other way resembles C.C.

Now every time Ken comes into my office and starts yapping, I hear, "Talk Dirty to Me" going through my head.

It's rather unsettling.

I used to get a lot of mileage out of my imitation of CC DeVille. It's from (yes) "Behind the Music," where he's talking about his mansion in Hollywood and he says (in his very obnoxious Jersey trash bleating voice) "It was a house of whores, then it became a house of horrors." But the way he talks, it sounds like "ha-rahs" and "ho-azs".

Now every time Ken comes into my office and starts yapping

You have an office? Wow, nobody has an office at my workplace. Even the high-up manager types sit in glass closets that could only loosely be called offices.

largely withdrawn from the retail stampede that poses as American society

That's a bitchin' turn of phrase there, ChiChi. In Denver and other cities across the US, it is very much a stampede. Every weekend, six lanes of Yukons and H2s stampeding to the Home Depots and Circuit Citys, stuffing as much big-ticket shit as possible into their SUVs. Really, I don't see how people managed to get along for so many centuries without a fucking 44" TV. Americans have suffered for far too long!!! We won't stand for undersized TVs for another minute!!! To do so would be pro-Saddam, thus TREASONOUS!

We won't stand for undersized TVs for another minute!!!

When my viewing unit needed upgrading, I actually bought a 13 inch television that had that flatscreen shit so you don't lose the bottom and top of your viewing area. It was all I needed. I don't have a big place so I don't really need to be able to watch Judge Judy from the coiling shack, that's were I do my reading anyway.... I saw my neighbor move into the samesized studio apt. next door and he had this hugh television that took up one wall. It is like watching a movie in a closet. It is funny to walk around the apartment buildings because everyone has such hugh TV units you can see everything they are watching.
Kansas is better than you think it is. Eastern Kansas is great. Foothills to the northeast and somewhat hilly in the southeast. I like that area a lot. Western Kansas is much like eastern colorado. Did you stop at the 2nd Stucky's just over the KS border that has the 5 legged cow and two headed snakes?

PS: Where was the Yale Kaul Experience on the sampler CD?

Another disgusting display of jingo-patriotism:
Toby Keith, "The Angry American"

http://www.tobykeith.com/music.htm#427

Kansas is better than you think it is.

Did I give the impression that I didn't dig Kansas? Oh hell, I dug the livin' shit out of it! And I only saw the part of it that gets bifurcated by I-70 anyway. Goodland was a bit creepy I guess, but on the whole I give Kansas mad propz yo. I saw that Stuckey's you're talking about, but couldn't see my way through to checking it out. Every time I see a Stuckey's sign, I think of that Dead Kennedys song "Winnebago Warrior" where they say "stop at Stuckey's for a meal; blab all day on the CB; honey quick, the polaroid." As a young punker hearing that song, I had never seen or heard of Stuckey's. I still have never been inside one.

I forgot to mention another thing about Kansas: the high level of public religiosity. Pert' near every motel billboard has the Jesus fish on it, and roadside anti-abortion signs abound. Both the Goodland and Junction City newspapers have a daily Bible quote featured prominently on page 2. The KC paper has one too, but there's another non-Christian quote beneath it, like a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita or something.

Where was the Yale Kaul Experience on the sampler CD?

There was so much other shit I wanted to put on there, I couldn't bring myself to sully that CD with my spew. I'll put it on next go 'round.

Toby Keith, "The Angry American"

I think I heard that piece of shit at the lodge of a ski area or something. I remember hearing the "boot in your ass" part and thinking "Whoa, sounds like someone is confusing US foreign policy with his own feelings of male inadequacy."

Seriously, it takes exactly zero intellect, courage or insight to write a song like that. The lyrics sound like they're from a high school fight song or something.

C'mon...really...how can anyone stand to listen to that crap?! I checked out the Toby Keith song and it sounds suspiciously like he's singing while trying to get someone's boot unstuck from his ass. Though I must say I wasn't very surprised to see he's sportin' a bitchin' mullet. I think a fitting end to this message is an assurance to all you dedicated yalestar cult members that I will make sure to show up in my office tomorrow, shirtless, the letters U.S.A. painted around my bologna tits, a roman candle in one hand, a boat horn in the other, and sing at the top of my lungs "Man, we lit up your world Like the 4th of July...And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you Courtesy of the Red White and Blue...`Cause we`ll put a boot in your ass
It`s the American way"!

(Please detect message dripping with sarcasm here).

Funny sidenote...I put the Toby Keith lyrics into MS word to spell check and see the Flesch Kincaid Grade Level (stats good ole' Bill Gates give you after a spell check) and it came out to 5th grade. Damn, how appropriate!

I didn't think you disliked Kansas at all. I think there is a big misperception about areas such as that. People complain about cities and want a nature experience but discount Kansas and other areas as too rural. I was trying to talk it up!
My friend Marvel who is from Kansas says natives refer to Topeka as Tah-Puke-A. Too working class. She is also afraid of all the gangs in KCCity. But she has a love of Kansas as whole.
I like the QT gas station chain in Kansas (and other areas). I also like the Spangles fastfood restaurants.
You are right about the religiousness that abounds there. I remember a whole week in Wichita when people lined the streets at rush hour holding signs supporting some anti-abortion anniversery. Weird and scary if you don't know what is going on.

PS: I would eat a frajita in a hotdog bun!

Speaking of religious folks in Kansas, if I'm not mistaken, Topeka is the home of Rev. Fred Phelps, that guy who goes around to colleges and holds up "God Hates Fags" signs. You may recall that he also did this at the funeral of murdered U of Wyo student Matthew Shephard.

And wasn't Topeka also where the shit went down that led up to Brown vs. Board of Education?

can they really be the majority?

Well Im going to go out on a limb here and make a correlation between these folks and folks who voted for shrub. Official results.

Now that works out with bore and shrub each getting roughly 50 million votes out of a voter age population of 205 million mostly overweight Amerikans. Roughly 24% of the population voted for that fucker. Which correlates to a Time magazine poll that showed 20% of Amerikans think they are in the top 1% tax bracket which happens to be 330K/year.

I prefer to pronounce it fa-jita (unsilent j, long i). That's how Toby K. and them say it, after all.

With regard to Stets' Stats (that sounds like a good name for a website, don't it?)

I love shit like this, so I digressed from whatever it is I do at work to make the following maps from the data on that website (click to enlargify):

This one shows voter turnout percentage by state for the 2000 presidential election:

This one shows percent of registered voters (% of all people in the state over 18) (NoDak has no voter registration and Wisc has registration at the polls):

All I have to say is: Is apathy a function of latitude?

Interesting that Cali and Tejas appear rather apathetic. Do you suppose the high number of illegal aliens skews the data?

Do you suppose the high number of illegal aliens skews the data?

I dont think so Gep, because illegal aliens are historically undercounted during census gathering, so not only are they not registered voters, their true numbers do not appear in voter age population(VAP) count either.

Ifyou look at MT for instance where 104% of the VAP is registered, you would have to ? just how up to date the VAP count really is, and for that matter how accurate the resitered voter roles really are. Personally I think the turnout numbers are inflated.

What I know for sure is upwards of 75% of the US population did not vote for Dubbya Shrub. That my friends is not a Democracy.

I just read some interesting shit that might partly explain why the low turnout in TX and so on. Places with large income gaps statistically have lower voter turnout. The states with the biggest income gaps are: New York, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, California, Rhode Island, Texas, Oregon, Kentucky, and Virginia. It's an interesting way to look at a phenomenon that most pundits would probably just chalk up to straight-up poverty numbers, eh?

By the way, the states with the smallest income gaps are: Utah, Indiana, Iowa, North Dakota, Colorado, Alaska, Maine, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Nebraska.

(all this info is from http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/march2000sklar.htm)

MT for instance where 104% of the VAP is registered

I was wondering about that too. Alaska is 110%. What the dang fuck?

Alaska is 110%. What the dang fuck?

1) out of date census used for VAP calc.

2) motor voter registration, which inflates the registered voter count.

3)innacurate voter registration roles, dead people voting and shit like that.

If anyone is interested how Shrub and his bro stole the florida election read this book.

I just read some interesting shit that might partly explain why the low turnout in TX and so on.

Good point. In a place like Louisiana, I don't know whether to call it apathy. Many people have become so discouraged by a system that does not work for them that they have simply disengaged from the political process. I've never experienced anything like the income differential in Louisiana.

On the plus side, politics are sure a lot more entertaining down here. I'm only sad that I missed the election in which Edwin Edwards (who is currently in jail) ran against David Duke. My co-worker has a "Vote for the Crook--It's important" bumper sticker.

Here's another quirk to be worked out in the next election. If it were up to me, no deadlines would be changed so the "president" can exploit the temporally nearby 9-11 anniversary to drum up business, er... uh, votes.

I've never experienced anything like the income differential in Louisiana

That's interesting, because I thought it was a big differential in Colorado, but I guess not. Apparently, according to those stats above, there's quite a bit more economic parity here. There's so many fucking rich people here, but you don't really see much of the abject squalor here like you probably do there in Louisisana.

Louisiana seems to have a history of extreme politicians, what with Edwin Edwards and Davey Duke and Huey Long.

What I know for sure is upwards of 75% of the US population did not vote for Dubbya Shrub. That my friends is not a Democracy.

I'm currently reading the third book of Robert Caro's biography of LBJ and I've come to realize how little our history reflects anything approaching true democracy. The very premise of the Senate (on which Caro's third volume dwells) was that it would function as a sort of stalling body, a bullwark against the popular and often ill-considered whims and "phrensy" of the masses (Missouri Compromise, McArthur's usurpation of Truman, for example). The Senate has, of course, become a stillwater of moneyed interests, but at the Senate's outset such interests were tempered by a noblesse oblige, which, frankly, utterly disappeared around the time of the Industrial Revolution...

But what happened was the union movement, which coalesced worker influence with strikes and their own money, which is tremendously significant. Currently, unions are about "as powerful as popcorn fart," to borrow LBJ's phrase. I'm still trying to figure out why folks aren't unionizing, especially in service sector jobs. Maybe things aren't bad enough (as opposed to significant risks like black lung) for American workers. Maybe we've exported so much of the dangerous work that used to provide manpower to unions.

In any event, my point is that votes, while important, have never ultimately been more crucial than money in our system. Sure, unions resulted in longshoremen and Teamster bloc votes. But that the unions were able to affect improvements (8-hour day and child-labor reform, etc.) for a range of non-unionized (and often, illiterate, non-voting) workers, was more due to the ability to buy candidates than secure votes.