The Baton Rouge Advocate Gets it Wrong

I had one of many lazy moments today where I sat down to read the newspaper, and had to laugh when they referred to Scott Walker as the Governor of Florida.  Well, its an easy enough mistake, I guess.  Florida is probably on a par with Wisconsin when it comes to stupidity in politics. 

I drove across Baton Rouge today during the end of rush hour --- a total mistake.  This city is so congested, it's unbelievable.  Felt like I was trying to drive across Los Angeles in a shriner car with a flat tire.  On the plus side, I got to look around more, and notice the differences in the neighborhoods.  I'm living in a new development just outside Baton Rouge's southwest side.  Everything around me is brand new, very elegant homes and planned communities.  It was nice to look around the older part of town, which has amazingly gracious homes.  There were some really blighted neighborhoods, too, sort of back to back with the nice ones.  Makes me really glad we decided to live outside of town.  I found the Whole Food Store and the tres chic mall. Also found L'Auberge casino, which is as elegant as anything in Vegas, and has a beautiful terrace overlooking the Mississippi.

At any rate, the city clears out after rush hour ..... I don't think Baton Rougeians go out at night. Probably too exhausted from the drive home from work.  I drove downtown and looked around, then drove back home through LSU.....very little traffic at all.  Very Milwaukee like.  For a big university town, I thought there would be more happening.  Oh well.  I know where to go for happening when I want to.  I could have made it to New Orleans in the time it took me to drive across this city and that's pretty funny.  I must remember not to drive through LSU when there's a football game.  People here really love the Tigers.  I've never seen such a big football stadium. 

I think I'll become a Saints fan, now.  At least, I think I can afford to go to one of their games, unlike taking out a loan to go watch football in Green Bay.  But then, I can't really ever let go of the green and gold and I don't even know the Saints' colors.

Out of Milwaukee - and Feeling Good!

I'm about halfway to Baton Rouge, spending the night in Arkansas with a cat who is madder than hell about a 9 hour road trip.  Ah, well.  We're halfway there.

I felt very sad about leaving my friends and my family, and a few tears rolled down my cheeks, but when I hit Racine County, I was just ecstatic.  I don't ever want to live in Wisconsin again, and I feel like I'll never have to.  Making the initial move was incredibly burdensome, but now that it's made, I really am beginning to understand I no longer have to live in a city I really don't like, in a state that's lost all of its charm (for me).  This feels very good and by the time I reached the Illinois border, I was in full joyful mode.

The cat, not so much.  He's really upset and when he's upset, he poops on the floor to let you know.  My car will never be the same.  It's not like the cat box wasn't available, he just was having his usual catitude, and alas, I'll get more of the same tomorrow.  Oh well, he doesn't know it yet, but he won't miss winter either.  Cat brains are very small. By tomorrow morning, it will all seem like fresh torture to him.

Got very tired somewhere in the Missouri boot heel and had to drink a gigantic coke for the caffeine.  It really helped, but physically, I feel just awful from it.  Giving up Coke was good for my health and if I didn't have a rotten little cat with me, I'd stick to coffee, but I have to time my pit stops to less than the 3 minutes it takes for the car to get unbearably hot.  So fun to travel this way. 

Oh well.......I have a free pass to all things unpleasant, icky, boring, weird or just plain stupid for at least the next two years.  My husband will have to do it.

RYAN BRAUN AND A REALITY CHECK

I'm watching another day of awful, violent news stories here in Milwaukee.  People shot to death overnight.  Armed robberies.  A dead infant, killed by his father.   A Dean of Students arrested for drunk driving and driving the wrong way on the freeway.   But what story dominates the news?  Ryan Braun's use of prohibited performance enhancing substances and his lack of making a public apology.

Frankly, I could care less about Ryan Braun or his apology.  His actions are neither important to me or of any particular interest.  The elevation of sports figures to some God-like status has always annoyed me, and I'm certain it also annoys the sports figures.  No one needs that kind of idolatry, persecution or scrutiny ---- unless they're feeding off the public trough of taxpayer monies.  So if Ryan Braun makes a public apology matters very little to me.  The news stories already have exposed him as a liar and a cheat.  What does one say after that?  I'm sorry?  Just doesn't really matter, does it?

Is anyone outraged over the street violence here in the city?  Hardly seems like it.  On Sunday, I'll pack up my car and head south.  I'll avoid the apathy that is as thick in this city as beer is abundant.  I'll leave all of this town's problems behind me and hope that my family members who remain here are able to stay safe in an increasingly dangerous and violent city.

Waiting for a statement from Ryan Braun?  Get a life.  Get a clue.  Get involved in making Milwaukee a better place, because frankly, it's an awful place and I'm glad I'm escaping.  Intelligent life is sadly lacking here.

WALKER DISTORTS TRUTH

When the conservative rag known as the Milwaukee Journal prints a headline stating that Scott Walker, that lazy-eyed, low IQ, poor excuse for a governor, is actually distorting the truth, well, you would think people would stand up and take notice.  But we all believe what we want to believe, don't we?  Oops.  Who am I kidding.  Most people believe whatever is convenient.

Walker's latest skip though the valley of deceit involves his jobs records.  We all remember Scott Walker's campaign promise of creating 250,000 jobs here in Wisconsin in the first term of his governorship.  Not exactly happening, but here's what he is saying today:  "Wisconsin has seen its best two year job growth in a decade". 

The Journal goes on to disavow that claim, providing stats and actual job numbers. 

Yet, Scott Walker perpetuates the lie.  Well, politics as usual, right?  Wrong.  Scott Walker spins the truth because he is a liar.  And liars simply cannot stop lying.  And there isn't a group quite like liars when they lie, because they consistently swear they are telling the truth. 

I guess Scott Walker fits perfectly the description and motivation of a pathological liar.  These people lie because they are completely paralyzed by fear that the truth might be discovered.  Scott Walker's truth is that he is unintelligent, unprepared, and unsure of the place he finds himself in, which place he had very little to do with actually attaining.

I do wish liars pants would start on fire with every lie they told.  We'd be a nation of charred a$$es.  The stink of burned fat would be everywhere.  If I wished I had a superpower, it would be to make people choke on the words of every lie they tell. 

Blame Anyone and Avoid the Truth

I found it very interesting that Robin Voss has a huge editorial in the Milwaukee Journal this morning about how the violence in the City of Milwaukee is attributable to poor policing.

Uh.... not really, Mr. Voss.

Mr. Voss, and other like-minded republicans, enjoy blaming the police department for the high number of violent crimes occurring in the city.  They decry paying police overtime as a method for curbing the violence.  They criticize police operations and methodology.  They blame the Chief of Police and the Mayor.  They point the fingers at everyone, except themselves.  And they are the true fan that flames the fire of inner city violence.

Milwaukee has lost jobs, manufacturing jobs, mostly.  Those jobs provided a source of income to many inner city residents, who are now forced to take minimum wage jobs, if they can find them.  It is impossible to support a family on a minimum wage salary.  So we have a loss of jobs.  Then comes a republican administration, which basically gutted any social safety net available to people who could not earn enough money to support their families and survive. 

What is happening in Milwaukee is reflective of what happened in Detroit.  People are desperate.  Most republicans have never been desperate, unless you want to include in that description desperately apathetic.  So let me educate republicans about what desperation looks like.  It looks like Detroit.  It is starting to look like Milwaukee.

People will do what they have to do to survive.  That is, they will take jobs that are horrible, for pay that is inadequate.  When even those low level jobs are no longer available, their lives are devalued and they have nothing more to lose.  This is when desperation sets in.  Since non-inner city folk, mostly white, have no idea how it feels to desperately need money, food, bus fare, new shoes, medication, etc., they have no clue what kind of corner the desperate folks have been backed into.

But they're going to find out.  Violence will continue to escalate here in the city.  The Robin Voss' of the world will continue to blame the police instead of the real culprit, a totally dysfunctional and apathetic society of haves not giving a rat's a$$ about the have-nots.  These people will continue to spout off their ignorant rants that if you work hard, anyone can make it, and inner city folk are just lazy.   You can't work hard if there are no f*cking jobs.  You can't "make it" on $8.00 per hour.  Period.  End of story.

I am leaving Milwaukee and moving to a very economically viable city in the south.  I don't want to watch the devastation that has fallen over this city, and I don't want to witness first hand the suffering that the republican party has inflicted on an entire race of people here in this city, with their narrow-minded and cruel economic plans and policies. 

Most importantly, I don't want to watch the desperately violent stories that pour out of my television during the six o'clock news.  I think, though, it will be harder to watch what happens when desperation brings about the end of the world as we know it, though.  Hitler rounded up the Jews and other "undesirables", herded them into concentration camps and methodically murdered them.  Is what we're doing that much different?  Starving people?  Killing them by providing no access to health care or medication?  Insuring that the cycle of poverty continues by gutting educational funding to public schools? 

Trust me, Mr. Voss, these desperate people will take matters into their own hands and there will be violent and bloody clashes between the haves and the have-nots in the near future.  Think you live in a safe neighborhood, immune to the violence of the inner city?  Think again.

Scott Walker Loose & Free with Taxpayer Funded Appointments

Ah, yes, Cynthia Archer back in the news with yet another high-paying job in Scott Walker's administration. 

It's amazing how Scott Walker hands out government jobs in his administration like a big fat banker hands out lollipops to a millionaire's kid. 

Now if only Scott Walker had enough compassion to hand out some Badger Care benefits to people who desperately needed them.  We all know Walker is as compassion-less as any other Nazi.  Bereft is the best word to describe Mr. Walker when it comes to any fundamental human emotion associated with caring.

If we are loading up the government here in Wisconsin with Scott Walker sycophants, Wisconsin is doomed to fail on every level.  Scott Walker is a hopelessly lacking human being with no real plan and no real clue.  Those that buy into his ideology seem to be cut from the same material; lightweight and diaphanous.  How long can this band of non-thinking demi-gods hold Wisconsin hostage?  I guess as long as the non-thinking blind faith voters continue to believe in Mr. Walker's house of cards.

Racists Entrenched in the GOP

Comparing illegal immigrants to Satan, Steven Kreiser, assistant deputy secretary at Wisconsin's DOT (a Scott Walker appointee)  has been fired from his job.  This is less about his bigoted rants than it is about damage control by Scott Walker.  You see, in the GOP, you must think the way Kreiser thinks, but you mustn't verbally express it.

Kreiser further wrote that a "stream of wretched criminals" is crossing the border without obstruction and they "completely ruined" entire states and industries.  Well who would know better about criminals and ruined states than a Scott Walker appointee.

My point, here, is that this person, appointed to a $96,628 position with the Department of Transportation, has the moronic sensibility of a gnat.  He is even more ignorant than our un-illustrious governor.  Why are these people in public office?  How did this country fall into a state of complete intolerance and blatant hatred for all things non-white and non-Christian?

Is the GOP the party of hate?  It certainly seems so.  Scott Walker is so busy handing out high-paying appointments based on political connectedness that he can't see the crooks for the pay-offs.  Scott Walker is as small-minded as Krieser, he just hides it better.  Perhaps Krieser will have to cross the border into Mexico to find a job to support his family.  I hear the big drug cartel down there is looking for new members.  I'm sure they would love to welcome someone as bigoted and full of hatred as Mr. Krieser. 

The big issue here, though, is not that Krieser is a bigoted racist, it's that he got appointed in the first place.  Yet another example of Scott Walker being incapable of homework.

REALLY TOO MUCH STUFF

In this moving process, I have purged a great deal of stuff from our lives.  Still, I have way too many material possessions and am now paying to have it shipped across country.

Yes, I like/love most of the stuff, but not enough to fill a smaller house with it. 

Here's my solution.  Every time a guest in my new home remarks that he/she likes something, I'm going to wrap it up and give it to them.  No strings attached.  Just get rid of it.  Please take it.  Use it in good faith.  If the guest was lying about liking it, well, tough.  The stuff is now his/her problem and that will teach him/her to open his/her mouth.

Although my decorating style can best be described as eclectic (with warm and cozy undertones), I am going for a minimalist approach in my new home.  Simple lines.  Clean walls.  No clutter.  By the time I'm living in the Garden District of New Orleans, I should be down to bare bones.  Pretty much how we all end up, anyhow.  I'm just expediting the process. 

Scott Walker a Real Butthole to the Sikh Community

There Scott Walker's picture was in The Milwaukee Journal, speaking at the Sikh Temple remembrance of the violent rampage that occurred there one year ago, costing many people their lives. 

Complete with a Sikh turban on the ever vacant space he calls a head.

How does someone who promotes gun violence, is in bed with the National Rifle Association, an advocate for concealed carry laws and opposed to assault weapon bans have the unmitigated gall to stand up in front of a roomful of people he (for obvious Baptist reasons) believes are going to hell anyway and speak to their sorrow, their pain and their loss.  If this isn't political prostitution, than political prostitution simply does not exist.

Scott Walker should stick to kissing the A$$es of his political contributors, and leave innocent victims out of his repertoire.  The man has no conscience and no political savvy.  If he did, he'd realize just what a hypocrite he always comes across as.

People are Randomly Funny Everywhere on the Web.

So, just when I think I have heard it all, I heard this:

If there isn't one really ugly person in your group of friends, you can be pretty sure you're the one.

Ha.  Made me laugh.  Don't know why.  Kind of mean.  Still, people are so clever in their attempts at sarcasm, satire and ways to make others smile.

Dog-Trotting Joggers Drop Dead

I am about at the end of the monumental task of packing up a two story home by myself.  I will move in less than three weeks.  It is Sunday, and I am taking the day off.....read two newspapers all morning (and cut the grass), but will spend the rest of the day soaking in my daughter's pool and letting her wait on me because I, more than anyone, deserve a day off.  I'm finding it a little difficult to not pack something, not clean something, not toss something, in short, not do something to facilitate a cross country move.

As I finished reading the NY Times Magazine, I glanced out my (perfectly clean) living room windows and noticed a fabulously healthy specimen of a young women, jogging past with two smallish trotting dogs on leashes.  I don't know what annoyed me so much.  Her perfectly bouncing blond ponytail.  Her spandex running suit.  Her athletically appealing form.  Her spotless shoes.  Don't know.  I just wanted to walk outside, push her down on the sidewalk and kick her.

Here's the thing.  For two and a half months, I've worked very hard, very diligently, and for the most part very happily, knowing I'm escaping Wisconsin.  I've toted, lifted, and dragged more junk then Lamont Sanford ever did in however many seasons his show was on television.  I've yanked weeds, washed windows, crawled on the floor with a mini-vac to remove cat hair.  I've driven across town a dozen times to unload stuff I don't want, need or ever want to see again (most of it my husband's).

So I put on my swimsuit and looked in the mirror.  Oy vey.  You would think that all my efforts would have had some effect on my swimsuit physique.  Maybe my arms are a little less doughy.  Maybe my thighs are a little slimmer.  But the rest of me looks pretty much like I looked when we got the call to come to Louisiana -- comfortably aged woman whose clothes are more about fit than style.  More about hiding than flaunting.  What is it going to take?  Well, a time machine, I guess.  Or an Olympic sized swimming pool and a daily commitment to spend at least an hour each day being wet.  Liposuction, lifestyle lift and breast re-perking.   If only I had that kind of money.

Regardless, happy jogger with her dogs isn't such a goddamn big deal.  I looked good at thirty too, with minimal effort.  Here's the challenge; how will I ever look good when this move is over?  Because right now I look tired, under nourished, and as flimsy as one of my cardboard boxes.  I need to get my teeth cleaned, my hair cut, my toes pedicured, and a full body massage for at least two hours.  Or will I automatically lose ten years off my face escaping the frozen wastelands for the gulf coast?

I bought myself a new Bobbie Brown lipstick and a pair of Clark sandals on the yellow dot table at Boston Store.  This will have to be enough for now.  It's no image miracle, but it's something.

How Do Other Governors TalkTo Scott Walker at the Milwaukee Governor's Conference?

Real Slow.

WE Energy Customers going to get Gouged Again

Everyone knows WE Energies is a terrible company; from the rates they charge to residential households, to the bonuses they pay to their top executives; these guys are the greediest whores in Wisconsin. 

They just lost a huge account with a mining company in northern Wisconsin, who has the ability to purchase their energy from an upper Michigan electric service provider.  Don't worry; this won't hurt WE Energies at all; they'll just pass this multi-million dollar loss onto you, the residential customer.

Here is why I hate this company this morning:

I'm moving to Louisiana, where my husband has resided in our new house for the past two months.  It's summer, it's southern Louisiana, so the air conditioner runs pretty much non stop.  He got our first month's energy bill yesterday, which was approximately $70.  If he pays it on time, it goes down to $62.    Granted, our house in Louisiana is brand new construction, built to the highest green standards, with a super efficient HVAC system.  But still, Louisiana is very hot and humid in the summer, so getting a bill for $62 for a month's of energy usage pretty much astounded both of us.

WE Energies, on the other hand, costs me approximately $2700 per year.  I haven't run my air conditioner at all because it has been, for the most part, a very cool summer.  I'm in the process of closing up the house and joining my husband, so I use very little energy here - no one is doing laundry, no one is watering the garden, in short, we are moving out. 

WE Energies charges one of the top rates in the country for it's electric/gas service.  Unfortunately, for the people in southeastern Wisconsin, we don't have a choice on where we purchase our energy, it's a monopoly and it represents all the reasons why monopolies should not be allowed in a free enterprise system. 

Frankly, I don't understand why people don't DEMAND accountability on the part of WE Energies.  It is unreasonable to assume that these rates for power are reasonable or fair. 

For my part, I'm leaving this hellacious city and this regressive state for greener pastures.  There truly is no utopia on this planet, but there certainly is a wide selection of hells, and WE Energies brings their particular hell to life each month via your energy bill.

Despicable People

One of the big news stories in Milwaukee today is the sentence of seven years that a man received for killing his girlfriend's two year old daughter.  Front page news, as he walks out of court with a smirk on his face, happy to have gotten it over on the system one more time.  The girl's mother also pleaded to lesser charges and will walk out of prison in a short time.

I guess I have to assume these two people are junkies or worse; it takes some kind of a morally bereft, brain addled person to beat a two year old to death unless you're coming off a high or trying to enjoy the heroin that has just entered your vein, and the two year old wants something to eat.  Ooops......did they forget to feed her for a day or two?

The mother has three other children, all of whom had been assessed by the Bureau of Child Welfare, and abuse charges found to be "unsubstantiated".  My a$$.  Abuse charges unsubstantiated were probably based on the path of least resistance for these workers to actually collect their paychecks while not doing their jobs. 

So, the two year old is dead, the three other kids are in foster care, and the mother and her a$$hole boyfriend are going to prison for what can only be considered a sweetheart of a plea bargain.

These stories really upset me and bring out a rage inside me that is hard for me to accept as my own.  I do hope these two get to prison and become instant targets for anyone inside who is a real hardened criminal; someone who killed/maimed/tortured other adults and not babies, some gang banger with full blown psychotic features.  Baby killers should have their lives destroyed by bigger bullies than themselves.  That front page smirk on the murderer's face makes me want to see him bloodied and brain dead; forced to live in a hospital bed while he fills his diapers with the rotten stink of whatever is inside him.  Terrible to feel this way, but that smirk inspired me.  I'm despicable for feeling this way, I know.  But may poetic justice prevail here and may these two end up as dead as that toddler.  Two less vermin on the earth.