You say Apartheid, like it's a bad thing........

Gotcha with that title, didn't I? I' m not talking about Apartheid like in South Africa. There's no Nelson Mandela. No white Dutchmen with funny names and those hats that have one side of the brim flipped up like Teddy Roosevelt.  No blood diamonds, Zebras, or anyone being decapitated by pissed off Zulus. It's not a white thang, or a black one, race doesn't even enter the equation. No friends, my vision of Apartheid is one where the world would be a better, safer, more pleasant place. If we could just separate one special group from the human herd, we could all coexist, just like those blue bumper stickers with all of the worlds religious symbols spelling out coexist,  which are usually displayed on the bumper of a 25 year old Subaru or Toyota, promise.  Fuckin Hippies.

Oh. I Have A Dream.  But let me back up for  a second, and explain where this dream was born.

All of my adult life I have had a policy of not getting friendly with my neighbors. It's more than a policy really, it's my mantra,  my religion, and while it may seem a little reclusive and curmudgeonly to most of you rubes, my self imposed standoffishness has served me well, saving me untold grief and probably saved a life or two in the process. So I was on high alert when the  dude  next door introduced himself to the Nurse and I when we moved in to our new digs here in Indy. First impressions are everything, so I always try to make myself as unapproachable as possible. The Nurse on the other hand is as friendly a person as I've ever met. She is the exact opposite of me. Where I see people through skeptical spectacles, she is all rose colored glasses and handing out benefit of the doubt passes like a Jehovah's witness hanging Watch Tower magazines on random doors.  So it came as no surprise that she thought our new neighbor was a nice guy, while I saw him as a nuisance.

Familiarity is a dangerous thing. When people think they know you, they often think that gives them a free pass to do stupid shit that might effect you in an adverse way. The douche next door is a prime example of this theory.   A few days ago I'm sitting here in my lair, drinking my morning coffee, hammering out another Pulitzer worthy post, trying to ignore the orange colored glass bowl full of goodness on the end table next to me that will rob me of my ambition and make me eat a whole box full of cereal, when it happens.  BOOM!!  Then the computer loses it's wireless connection, the TV goes black, the lights go out, the dogs jump up in the bay window and start barking.  I already know what happened and why. I know without looking that the doofus next door has just pissed in my Wheaties and fucked up an otherwise tranquil morning. I know this because he spent 10 minutes the previous morning telling me from across the fence how he has some guy from Craigslist coming to trim  a tree in his yard. I know this because he has become familiar. So I get up, walk out on to my back deck. There is a tree limb as big around as my waist laying over my now crushed, bent and fucked up fence. My power line is down, my phone line is down, the conduit ripped from the box on the side of the house.  There's my neighbor. There's some clown holding a 78 dollar green and purple chainsaw.

The conversation went something like this.
Did you lose power?
Yeah, that generally happens when you take out a power line.
I can't believe that limb fell in your direction.
It was hanging over my fence and power line. Gravity being what it is, where the fuck did you think it was going to fall?
I'll fix your fence.

I go back inside, call the P&L people, call the phone people, and say "Fuck self control", as I reach for my glaucoma preventative medicine.  The power line gets fixed in about an hour. The phone line the following day.
Next morning, I hear the chainsaw fire up. I walk out on the deck, there are the same 2 thorns in my side from the previous day about to cut another limb from the same tree. This limb also hangs over my fence.

That convo  goes something like this.

I think this one will miss your fence for sure. 
Still trying to defy gravity?
huh?
You know, if you'll tie a rope around that limb and pull it away from my fence as he cuts it, chances are it wont take out more of my shit.
Hey, that's a good idea!
You're kinda nonchallant about  other peoples shit.
That conversation ends with a long uncomfortable silence.

Here's the rub. This all could have been avoided if the guy next door thought of me as the unapproachable, surly, prick, that I pride myself on being.  When people think you might put a foot in their ass, they don't do stupid shit like smash your fence and knock out your power line. They think before they act, lest the find themselves being attacked by the recluse next door. Fear and uncertainty trumps familiar and friendly, every, single, time.

Back to my apartheid thing. I figure if we could round up every mouth breather in the nation, exile them to Idaho or Alaska, the world would be a better place for the rest of us. It ain't gonna happen. Stupid people doing stupid shit is our cross to carry. We can't put em away, we can't put em down. We just have to put up with em. I'd build a wall around the house, but then I couldn't blow all my leaves out in the street come Autumn, pissing off all the surrounding neighbors who spend countless hours raking and bagging.  I've no doubt they would complain, except the aren't too sure of me.
They aren't familiar.
I like that.
It even makes me smile a little.
I just never let them see it.

How to Pimp an entire country in one easy step...........or something.

Some hayseed preacher in Florida has pimped the media. He has pimped the military. This guy even has the White House responding to his Burn a Koran day.  You could even argue that he has played yours truly, beings I'm writing about the whole hot mess.  The Rev. Terry Jones is right up there in the Pimp lineage with Fillmore Slim, who is famous for the following Quote "Pussy gonna sell when cotton and corn won't".  I know what you may be thinking. Double M has finally gone off the deep end. He is being all flippant and shit over this evil preacher  who is endangering the lives of our troops . Not to mention disrespecting the memory of all 9/11 victims. Hell he may even be endangering our lives here on American soil. Let alone the damage this preacher is doing to the image of America where Muslims are concerned.

  I want everyone to take a deep breath, step away away from the koolaid. I'm here to help.

Unless you have been living in a cave, like the worlds most wanted man, lookin atchoo Osama, then you surely have heard about Floridas answer to Fred Phelps, the Rev. Terry Jones. Up until a few days ago he was just another whack job small time preacher, preaching about end times and berating the gays, the liberals, or the gubmint.  Know why you haven't heard of him until recently? Because he only had 50 followers, that's why. I have way more followers than that on this obscure, but top shelf bloggy thing.  So the Rev. who I will refer to from now on by his pimp name, T Dawg, was probably sitting around trying to figure out if snake handling or speaking in tongues would bring in more cheddar, and young girls, when he had an epiphany........" I'll do some outrageous shit on 9/11. That'll mos def get me some attention! Besides, those fuckin snakes bite."

So our boy T Dawg, who is sportin a hella porn mustache, feeds the local media a tip. "Preacher and crazy congregation to burn hundreds of Korans on 9/11 !!!!"  Next thing you know there is a big ass Facebook page, Chock Fulll O Crazy, and the national media grabs the story and runs with it like a dog  with a newly liberated rack of baby back ribs. 

This small time douche nozzle has managed to get responses from our Secretary of State, Gen. David Petraeus, the head of American forces in Afghanistan, White House dood David Gibbs, and God knows who else. Think about that for a minute. Nobody even knew about him a couple weeks ago.   Here's the rub, this story is fairly old as news goes. CNN started the ball rolling back on the 20th of August.
Like any good ad campaign the media has built this thing slow and steady, until it gets stuck in your head like a catchy tune or phrase.

Soon the media will descend on this small time Gainesville church and give  them even more free advertising.
General Petraeus says he is endangering American Troops in Afghanistan. That statement would lead one to believe that our soldiers were somehow not in danger before Eb from Green Acres decided to burn the koran. I guess he knows what he is talking about, but I can't help thinking that being at war, on foriegn soil, fighting an enemy who has no problem strapping a couple pounds of explosives to themselves like a sanitary napkin, then casually walking into a crowd and blowing themselves to smithereens, is just about as fuckin dangerous an environment as there is.  As for the PR hit America will take from Muslims world wide, gimme a break. We are about as popular with Muslims as Tiger Woods is with Promise Keepers.

Will extremist Muslims go on a killing spree over this clown burning the Koran? Maybe. But if it wasn't this, it would be something else, and this thing wouldn't have been an issue at all had the media not made it one, and the White House had not taken the bait. Now we Americans have risen up and condemned this clown, or embraced him. We have all been pimped by a guy who is about as articulate as a hair lip with a mouth full of Double Bubble. The media and government officials who have responded and helped blow this guys name up, are all walking around with coat hanger pimp stick marks on their legs and ass.

Our troops were in big time danger before this debacle ever started. This lame act of book burning doesn't heighten the danger, it was already as high as it gets. When people hate you so much they will die just to kill you, that is as bad as shit gets. Period. Nothing can make it any worse.
This doofus isn't any more dangerous than Fred Phelps or the countless other small time hate mongering attention whores that manage to catch our attention through outrageous statements and acts. Will there be effigy burning and demonstrations is the land of sand ? Sure. But they do that shit on a daily basis anyway.
At the end of the day, the biggest tragedy in this thing is that the media has given this guy so much attention, it will take the focus away from the victims of  9/11.

Hey Baby....

Call me a skeptic. Accuse me of being a pessimist when it comes to human nature. Once again a baby has been found wandering the streets of the city. This time it was in South KC, and the kid just showed up in front of a daycare center in his Sponge Bob jammies, barefoot. Apparently the kid was knocking on the window of the daycare. One of the daycare workers said the kid was dry, his feet were clean. Beings how it has been raining, and the kid was soaking wet and had clean feet, one of the daycare workers said shit didn't add up. Cops were called, because, well, toddlers can't just check themselves in to daycare centers. I'm watching Fox 4. There's Kathy Quinn, all decked out in her best leopard print outfit, relating the story on camera. Then the camera man swings around to catch Mom and a few other people. Just right off the cuff, and because there is no firewall between my brain and your computer screen, here's a couple of observations.


(1)  Mom looks like she needs to eat a fuckin sandwich and get some sleep.
Am I saying she looked high? Possibly on some type of stimulant? Never that.
Actually, that's exactly what I'm saying. At the very least she looked like she had a long night.
Harsh? Judgmental? Making accusations based on a couple of seconds of film footage?
Absolutely.  And I'm making a judgment based on the fact that this "Mother"  discovered her kid was missing when a neighbor "told her" this morning.
(2)  If your kid wonders off, and it happens, that's one thing. If your kid has been gone long enough that you don't notice he is missing until you peep him on the morning news, or someone tells you he is missing, that's a whole new ball O wax.


Now that I've hopefully pissed off and offended at least a few people, allow me to splain  how this thing is going to play out.  I've got 3 scenarios, should I be wrong, I'll publicly apologize and buy Mom a five dollar foot long from Subway with all the trimmings.
(1)  Mom left her 2 year old home alone, he went for a stroll, lost his shoes, showed up at the daycare place.
(2)  Mom left kid with someone who is as irresponsible as she is. Said person got pissed mom didn't show back up to get her kid, so they dropped him off in front of the daycare.
(3)  Baby is a two year old reincarnation of Harry Houdini. He slipped from the confines of his crib, managed to open a door that should have been locked, then showed up 5 blocks away in the rain ,with clean, bare feet. Now that's some David Copperfield shit right there. It's like when David Blaine does that levitation trick.

Look, we've had this talk before. Readers have pointed out how I'm being unreasonable to question a Mothers veracity because her story doesn't sound right to me. I've also been called to task because I've said someone was a piss poor parent for not being sure their kid can't escape the supposedly safe confines of their home in the wee hours of the morning.
If you are of that opinion then I respect that, but I'm still not buying what you are selling.  This isn't the first time we have heard of  babies strolling around the streets of this city.

I know there are more instances of this, I recall at least 2 others in the last year or two, but I'm too lazy to look. And it's a moot point , because that was then, this is now.  If your 2 year old is able to show up at a business, 5 blocks from your home, and you find out about it on the news, you are a shitty parent. Period, end of story. Call me harsh, claim I'm a cynical prick. It's all true. But this is the big city folks, it ain't exactly Mayberry round these parts. Bad shit happens, it often happens to the most vulnerable of us, children.  So pardon me if I just can't find a positive spin. I always like to close a post with an appropriate message, a lesson if you will. Call me the Aesop of the greater Kansas City area. The moral of this post.............
If you don't want to be judged by some random doofus on some semi obscure blog, then don't let your 2 year old wander the streets of this city. And eat a sammich and get a nap. Seriously.