I swear

Justice Scalia apparently thinks the entire country is divided into two parts: the big, bad city and nice, wholesome Pleasantville. And never the twain shall meet in his mind.

"We doubt, to begin with, that small-town broadcasters run a heightened risk of liability for indecent utterances. In programming that they originate, their down-home local guests probably employ vulgarity less than big-city folks; and small-town stations generally cannot afford or cannot attract foul-mouthed glitteratae from Hollywood." FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., p.24

(In case you're wondering, this is the single swear word case, where Fox was fined because Bono dropped an f-bomb during a live telecast.)

Huh?? I mean, WTF? If I had been drinking coffee when I read that, I would have spit it. Does he seriously think that people who don't live in the big, bad cities don't swear? All I can say is F*** that S***. I call a big, steaming pile of male cow manure on that one.

This man is one of a very select group. He is one of 9 people who set an awful lot of the rules the rest of us have to live with. And he has no idea what real life in this country is really like. It's not just Hollywood glitterati who swear. Even small-town rubes can drop the f-bomb once in a while. Even nice, happy heartlanders can call people a-holes and b*tches. He can't seriously think otherwise. Can he?

And who uses terms like "down-home"?

My new soundtrack for life: Queen's "Under Pressure"

I think I need to implement a morning check list, to avoid any more mornings of abandoning the car pool because I've left something major at home. (So far, I've at least always been fully dressed, so that's good.)

Why so forgetful of late? I've been under a lot of pressure lately. (That's a Queen song you're hearing in your head, not Vanilla Ice.) First, there was that major project that had to be finished two weeks ago. There's a bit more to the project that will be finished this afternoon. So that's one thing down.

But more importantly, my biggest case ever is in full go mode right now. It's the sort of case that you feel you'll never get through. No matter how much work I do on it, I still feel like there's that much more work to be done. I've been thinking about or working on this case all day, every day. I've skipped family birthdays. I've skipped knitting club. I've deeply disappointed my dog. I haven't eaten very well, I haven't slept well, and I haven't gotten any exercise in. I'm so in the middle of it right now that I can't see an end. I can't even find the tunnel, let alone see any light at the end of it. The phrase "soul-crushing" has sprung to mind more than once in the past few weeks. I'm a little excited that I found 10 minutes to sit quietly on my couch this morning, but I'm still thinking about all the better ways I could be using these spare minutes. (Maddie is looking at me reproachfully; I think I know how she thinks I should be using this time.)

Even after this case is over, it will probably take me a while to normalize. There will be all the other work that hasn't even been looked at to address. But sometime around July, I might just be leveling back out. Here's hoping I make it until then.

I learned to drive the old-fashioned way - my parents taught me. I remember getting my learner's permit at 14. I wore a red sweater because my mother told me the background was blue. Too bad for me the background for the learner's permit was red. That was not my best photo.

Most of my early driving lessons took place in the biggest park in town. It had a nice, big parking lot that was usually pretty vacant, and a little, windy park road that is maybe a quarter of a mile long. Top speed on that road should be about 20 mph. That road had a curve that I just couldn't master. If I wanted to stay within my lane, I had to slow down to about 10. I felt like I was never going to get it. Well, of course I did get it, and as a big girl driver, I can handle curves without slowing down to single digits.

Today, I took the scenic route home. (In a sad repeat from last week, I had to drive myself because I left my purse at home. I don't think I have ever forgotten my purse before!) It's a pretty curvy road. As I took a big curve without slowing down - not recklessly, just controlled - the image of 14 year-old me trying so hard to figure out that curve came to mind. I hadn't thought about that in years, but today I remembered how I struggled to hit that curve in Cico Park and how frustrating that was to 14 year-old me. I just wanted to be a cool grown-up already, one who could handle whatever curves life threw at her.

I'm pretty sure 14 year-old me would think 30-something me is a badass.

Aren't these guys a little young for mid-life crises?

In 1993, a Pennsylvania high-school football game ended in a tie. Now, the teams involved in that game want to go back and settle the score. The two teams, Easton and Phillipsburg, were major rivals so leaving the field on a tie stung for the guys playing. (Back in 1993, high schools didn't play overtime, so if the score was tied at the end of regulation, that's how the game ended.)

Gatorade decided to sponsor a replay of the game so a winner could finally be declared. Maybe it's just a silly stunt by a bunch of men who want to recapture their lost youth. But there have been some definite benefits to the participants. The teams, now made up of men in their 30s, have been practicing for the past several weeks. As a result, many of the guys have lost weight and improved their health. One guy was even able to stop taking high blood pressure medication.

In 1993, Easton was heavily favored to win the game, but perhaps the march of years have been kinder to Phillipsburg. Phillipsburg won today's replay 27-12.

So the guys from Phillipsburg are probably glad they went through with the replay.

1) Why are cruise ships so much better at fending off pirate attacks than cargo ships? Oh, and why are cruise ships continuing to sail off the coast of Somalia? It's understandable that cargo ships would continue to use the gulf on the northern edge of Africa. But cruise ships don't actually have to get from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic or vice versa. Cruise ships can go wherever they want. If I were in charge of a cruise line that had regularly offered cruises through the Gulf of Aden, I think I might be re-routing my cruises these days.

2) I wonder how many people this weekend are feeling lethargic, nauseated, and experience a loss of appetite. In all this mention of the potential for a swine flu pandemic, it's easy for the paranoid and hypochondriacs among us to imagine they are suffering flu-like symptoms. I'm guessing. I don't personally know anyone who would be so silly as to think she could have the swine flu. Nope. No one in this house.

3) Microsoft Word is a bad, bad program. WordPerfect is the far superior program. I was forced to switch to Word after years of enjoying the ease of WP. Word is not easy. It is not user-friendly. It certainly does not defer to the formatting choices I make; instead, it imposes itself on me and makes me want to tear my hair out when I can't convince it that I want things my way. I think Word just might be the most despicable software on the planet.

Retail therapy

Sometimes, you just need a little thing to make your day brighter. Like a new pair of jeans. I'm kind of a jean whore. (And a shoe whore, but that's a different blog post.) Need a quick pick me up? Go buy a new pair of jeans. If you stick to Old Navy, it's a pretty cheap form of retail therapy. (Please, Old Navy, don't go out of business!) But with my recent complete lack of running, trying on jeans is more likely to be a traumatic experience, so I hadn't even thought I would go shopping.

Instead, my afternoon was going to be all about work. But before getting down to work, I had to walk downtown to buy a cup of coffee and pick up a sandwich for lunch. I went to the closet to dig out my weekend jeans. These are the oldest jeans I have right now. They are my absolute fall-backs. They're so soft and comfortably worn-in. They never threaten not to fit. And no matter how in or out of shape I am, they always make me look good. They're magic.

But I didn't find them. Instead, I found a pair of jeans I didn't recognize. I looked at the label. Old Navy flares. Hmm. They must have been my skinny jeans. But no, those are in a drawer, safely tucked away because I know I can't quite get those on right now. Maybe they were my other skinny jeans (the ones I can still sort of wear, but make me look like a muffin top), but they didn't look like quite the right color. And those aren't flares.

So I tried them on. Definitely not either pair of skinny jeans. Button and button hole came together with no complaints. Not too tight. The flare is really quite nice. But I have no memory of these jeans. I couldn't remember buying them. Couldn't remember ever wearing them. So these are just like brand new jeans, but without the expense and without the pain of trying them on in a dressing room.

I guess this is what they mean by going shopping in your closet. Wonder what else I'll find...

Furloughs: Don't think of it as a pay cut - it's a tax cut!

The Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives, Mike O'Neal, decided to take a run at earning the most despicable person on the planet award. He must have read my blog this morning, seen that I declared the winner to be Dick Cheney, and gotten jealous. Well, Mr. Speaker, you have certainly staked your claim to the title today.

The Kansas budget for fy 2010 does not look good. Current budget shortfall estimates are in the $328 million range. Mr. Speaker announced today that he would consider a furlough plan for state employees before any other options, including revenue increases. Which is just a nice, fancy way of saying he'd much rather give state employees a pay cut before even considering any tax increase of any kind.

You can call it whatever euphemism you want, but it's a pay cut. Of course, it doesn't do anything to cut the work load, so an awful lot of already over-worked state employees would just be expected to do all the same work and provide all the same services, but for less pay. I've also seen rumblings that more costs of employee benefits might be passed off to employees, which also translates into a pay cut. Did I mention that Kansas state employee benefits rank dead last in the country? Out of 50 states, we come in 50th in the benefits we provide our state employees, so definitely, we should cut them back even further.

If you're not from Kansas, you might be wondering how exactly we got into this budget pickle we're in. You might be thinking this is just part of this whole, crazy, nationwide economic meltdown. But that's not quite it. Our budget collapse goes back much further than that. From 1995-2005, our Republican-led legislature went on a tax-cutting frenzy. In that decade, businesses have received an estimated $6.7 billion in tax cuts. They've also had their unemployment compensation contributions reduced by $6.1 billion. Now, again, I'm no math expert, but I'm pretty sure $328 million is just a fraction of $6.7 BILLION. So you've given away billions of dollars of state revenue in that decade and now that the state is practically bankrupt as a result (continually cutting off your sources of revenue will eventually lead to you running out of money, after all), you want the state's employees to pay the bill for your reckless, decade-long tax-cutting spree.

Yep. Rather than roll back any of those tax cuts to businesses, or reinstate some business taxes that have been entirely repealed, Mr. Speaker would much rather close the budget gap by taking more money away from the already woefully underpaid state employees. Gotta love those family values. Business before people.

At least if I'm making less money, I won't have to pay quite as much in income taxes.

Ok, so it's still not quite Dick Cheney bad, but I will declare Mr. Speaker O'Neal to be the most despicable person in Kansas.