The Best Friend

There's a great article out of USA Today that went into an emotional moment with the death of pets. It laid out this modern change in society that has occurred over the past couple of decades. Pets aren't pets anymore. They are our immortal friends that we can't mention to husbands, wives, co-workers, sons, daughters, parents, neighbors or our best associates.

There are people today that have developed this bond for their dog or cat....and frankly, it's the only true relationship that is balanced (all in favor of the cat or dog).

I had an associate once point out that when older relatives come to visit for weeks or months....you start to have issues. Your bonding to that older relative isn't quiet the same. When you do special things for them....you really don't put significant regard to the quality.

My associate then pointed out that as our pets grow older and fall into this same category....we readily volunteer to drive five miles to pick up special dog bones for our 10-year old collie. Or we spend an hour combing the ten-year old cat because it's the right thing to do.

When the older cat begs for attention, we readily provide it because they've given something in return that isn't measurable. When the old dog begs for a walk in the middle of snow, we get up and do it without thinking.

Our pet is more than a pet. They've become a friend that we can't imagine being without. We won't admit that to anyone.

So enjoy a good five minute read with USA Today and this article.

Out of Silver Bullets?

In the past six months...there's been five or six 2-star speeches by the President. I can't remember that many in the first year...but there are rather odd phrases given to fit into his strategy of the audience:

"Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples. The British and French, the Dutch and Spanish, to Mexicans, to countless Indian tribes. We all shared the same land."

I paused over this speech given in the last couple of days by the President to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

In terms of facts...Mexico (16 Sep 1810) came about over thirty years after the Declaration of Independence. It was a comical mention which kinda hints that the speech writers don't know much American history (or Mexican). If it sounds good....write it.

Then came this idea of the "shared land". You have to remember that it's one notion....one concept....one dream....and you fall into line with everyone else. You can claim some ethnic background, but at the end of the day....you are American, and nothing else.

As for the other players?

Well....they come from alot of places: Afghanistan, Akrotiri, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bassas da India, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Bouvet Island, Brazil, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Christmas Island, Clipperton Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Cook Islands, Coral Sea Islands, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dhekelia, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Europa Island, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, Gabon, Gambia, Gaza Strip, Georgia, Gemany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Glorioso Islands, Greece, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guatemala, Guernsey, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Holy See (Vatican City), Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jan Mayen, Japan, Jersey, Jordan, Juan de Nova Island, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, North Korea, South Korea, Kuwait, Krgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Navassa Island, Nepal, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paracel Islands, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Pitcairn Islands, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Reunion, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia and Montenegro, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Spain, Spratly Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Svalbard, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tokelau, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tromelin Island, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Virgin Islands, Wake Island, Wallis and Futuna, West Bank, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, & Zimbabwe.

The key feature here is that we've got alot of special folks and we tend not to give out that many special waivers or favors. If we started doing that, then we'd need to raise up the Tonga flag on 8 November, or the Sao Tome flag on 21 December.

As for the poor speech decline? I would speculate that the bucket of great speech material has been mostly used up by the President. At this point....he probably has five or six four-star speeches left between now and November of 2012. I'd probably lessen my engagement plan and try to save up....because every speech that folks find in a humorous way....it's a strike against you.

Bonus Humor

Some smart folks over at Vanderbilt University finally sat down and did some analysis on teachers.

The topic here....if you gave a teacher a bonus, would that help raise student's test scores? This took Vanderbilt three years to gather data and finally come to a conclusion...and basically, the answer is that bonuses do nothing to help the test scores.

They used Nashville as the site of data collected.

I'm going to guess that folks will be shocked and amazed over with the teacher union crowd. They had said all along...if you'd just toss in another $5k or $10k....teachers would suddenly wake up and really do better in the classroom. It's kinda like offering beer to a college student to do better with his grades...and you assume it'll work in the end.

Some advice here from a humble Bama guy. Instead of offering bonus money to make more students raise their grades....offer termination if they can't improve their student's grades in twelve months, and make it simple to start with by five percent improvement.

I suspect that if you had this simple logic of do your job or find a new job...like the rest of us...then you'd find methods to improve student's grades (or you'd lessen the test matter).

Why The New Season of TV Sucks

I watched the new Hawaii 5-0 and The Event last night. By the end...I felt issues.

This new Hawaii 5-0 is peppy and modern. Danno has emotions. The boss is likable. The Korean guy from Lost kicks ass. The Borg-gal from Battlestar Galacticia is hot.

The story moved along and the bad guys either got arrested or killed by the end.

I have my doubts that I'll go back and watch the new Hawaii 5-0. For some reason...I liked the old series. This is like taking Miami Vice and reinventing it with two lesbian chicks from the Bronx who moved to Maimi. Or taking Barnaby Jones and putting it back on with some washed-up star like Burt Reynolds. It just doesn't work.

As for The Event? It's supposed to be "24" and Lost combined. At the end...I felt like I needed to time a shot of Jacky D's about every six minutes to make The Event understandable.

They are taking a storyline spread out over a year....and splicing it up into twenty-odd scenes per show, and shown in a totally random fashion. You get a shot of something from twelve months ago, then six minutes of something from yesterday, then a two-minute piece from nine months ago, and then back to an event that lasted five minutes which occurred today.

Imagine an entire season of 26 shows...with twenty scenes per show...with five years of this spread out. There's no way that you'd ever grasp the significance or absorb enough of this...to make any sense.

So I've decided to drop The Event...and watch Ice Road Truckers or Swamp People on the History Channel instead.

A Bedtime Story

Across the spectrum of jobs in America....I consider the profession of economist to be the most confusing and likely the most over-rated job in America. I've often wondered how a kid could finish university and even find a legit job in his study area of economics.

Yesterday...a group of economists released their opinion. They had determined that the US recession had ended in June of 2009 and thus ended a 18-month longer recession....longest since WW II.

I paused over this...kinda grinning. The real estate market in Arizona, California, and Florida is still fairly flat. There's more banks this year which have failed than in all of last year (note: we still have three months to go). We had folks telling last week that one in seven Americans are in a state of poverty.

I'm not an economist, and I admit most of my vast knowledge on business is due to the Wall Street Journal...but I suspect these guys who say it ended in June of last year can only be right if recession number two has started up. Otherwise, I have my doubts about their analysis.

The curious thing is that historically....at least before the 1930s...recessions occurred about every ten years and last twelve to eighteen months. The US government policy was typically to do nothing, and you'd emerge.

For the recession to have ended in June of last year....means most of what Bush did in his final twelve months...must have worked. I can say that because our 5-star stimulus package hadn't even hit the streets by May of 2009...and most of what the 4-star deal for Chrysler and GM hadn't really had a chance to take-off. This analysis of mine might be up for debate...but its about as good as what these economists say.

So you can go home tonight...open up a Pabst and sit on the patio wondering what makes things different now from June of last year. Then you might open a second Pabst...a third Pabst, and eventually drink up the whole six pack...before giving up and going to bed. Words of an economist will just put you to sleep...sooner or later.