Just Vote Damn It!

When the election comes, there's the big issue of actual voting.
126 million people voted for president in 2004.
That's 64% of the eligible voting age citizens in America. 196,875,000
72% of eligible voters are actually registered. 141,750,000
So that means that 8% of registered voters did NOT vote in 2004- 55,125,000
Why didn't they vote? Well, they're either dead, dying, alone, hassled because they have some sort of discrepancy in their registration, or just plain cynical and lazy. I'd say that 80% of that 55
million falls into that last category- and that's just a guess.

What does 40 million votes get you (80% of 55M)?
Consider this (source- Wikipedia)

• Bush beat Kerry in 2004 by 3 million popular votes.
• Gore beat Bush in 2000 by less than 500,000 popular votes.
• Clinton beat Dole in 1996 by 8 million popular votes.
• Forget Ross Perot in 1992, Clinton beat Bush by 6 million votes.
• HW Bush beat Dukakis by 7 million votes in 1988.

Yes, I know that more people have voted in subsequent elections as our population has grown, but the point is that each of these elections could have swung the other way if enough people actually got off their registered voter duffs and pulled the lever. Isn't it a travesty that Bush actually won in 2000? Yes. But if even 500,000 more registered democrats would have gone out to cast their vote, then Gore would have been put in office. In fact the most recent election where it wouldn't have mattered was 1984 when Reagan beat Mondale by almost 18 million votes.

Will Obama get part of that cynical 40 million to actually vote this time? Will McCain? Apparently Obama has reignited political interest in the 18-25 demographic, but will they actually vote? If they do and they are all for Obama as is predicted, then it's a no brainer.

The Presidential Polls and the Fickle American

I'm no political pundit, but I have to laugh a little at the recent presidential candidate polls. As of today, McCain is suddenly the front-runner. Per the latest Reuters/Zogby poll, McCain now has a 7 point lead over Obama. This is quite a turn of events as the golden child is supposedly showing signs of weakness.

Now Obama is the "sexier" choice- hands down. I watched the Saddleback Church forum and although I'm not voting for him, I now see why Obama is so popular. But I'm still voting for McCain and he came off very well also during the same forum.

Obama has a huge youth movement behind him, along with most of our high profile members of society (Hollywood). He has "radical" yet basic ideals of how to bring our country back together again, and a history of actually doing that sort of thing. But while that might be great on a social front, I still don't believe that's enough for a president. McCain has him beat hands down on international issues as well as economic issues. But between you, me and the internet lamppost of a random blog, Obama will win regardless of this last poll.

But that's not even the point of this post. Each candidate has a huge fatal flaw that they need to rectify in order to become the clear front runner. Obama- has little credibility in the international/military front, and McCain is too old. So what does each one need to do to rectify that situation? Pick an appropriate veep.

The ideal choice for Obama is a slightly older gentleman with international clout and preferably a military background. And even if he doesn't pick someone with these credentials, he'll be ok.

The ideal choice for McCain is a younger and very dynamic black male or female. McCain is in more of a pickle. If he picks a white guy like Romney, then he'll most likely compound the image of the white male leadership of America- which is a bad thing considering his dynamic youthful minority opponent.

So while we all speculate on the meaning of the aforementioned poll, we all know that this will change- most likely after this weekend when supposedly both candidates will choose their candidates. I don't need to speculate- and I really can't. But we'll obviously see another swing or enforcement of current statistics.

Tea Tree Oil

So my son Cole is 3. He had this crazy rash that looked like water blisters- all down his back to his ass crack. Perhaps 10 of them. It didn't bother him. He didn't scratch at them. But whenever we saw them, we worried about how we'd get rid of them. On a visit to our pediatrician, his doctor took a glance from across the room and declared that they were warts or more specifically: Molluscum Contagiosum. He said that the best course of action was no course of action.

A few months later, he now had about 50 of them- same general region. We took him back and the doctor once again said that the best course of action was no action. But if we wanted to take action, we could try an over the counter medicine like Compound W. He said to use it on just a few warts. This would then aggravate those warts and cause the body to react and thus start fighting all the other ones.

We tried this and it was like bloody murder- very traumatic to Cole and Nadine. We did it one time and that was that.

So about 6 months later, there's no improvement but it's still bugging the crap out of us. Now we've had this little jar of Tea Tree Oil sitting in the medicine cabinet for years. I'm not into this herbal or alternative medicine, so I've never tried using it, but Nadine decided to give it a shot. She puts it on his warts- all of them. No physical pain at all, but I just see a bunch of oil on my boy's backside and figure it's all voodoo.

Well she put it on the next day and perhaps one more day- so like 3-5 total applications- just spreading it on with a cotton ball- real lightly.

You can guess the rest. Within 2 weeks, every single wart was gone. Just gone. Cured. Boom. Done.

So now I'm thinking that we've got some sort of elixir of life. The golden scarab that will get us into the cave of wonders. The book of secrets. I'm excited. I've got fungus toe. I'm folically challenged. Get me some!

We're all out. Turns out that the bottle fell over and drained onto the counter top. This was 6 months ago. I'm too lazy to go buy some more. So much for the holy grail. I'll just suffer in peace and write a blog entry about it.

Being a Tiger Fan

So I've always been an underdog sort of fan. Here's my favorites going back to childhood:

Montreal Expos- 1981 to present
California Angels- 1982 to 1986
Buffalo Bills- 1988 to 1997
Jimmy Carter- 1980

Alright, so they aren't all sports teams, but my point is that I HATE rooting for the favorite. I'm not sure why, but it's just not part of my genetic makeup. I HATE the Yankees. I HATE the Cowboys. I HATE Obama. I HATE the Patriots. I HATE the Lakers.

When my current favorite baseball player (Vladimir Guerrero) signed with the Angels, I was pretty excited. I lived 20 minutes from Angel Stadium. I grew up an Angels fan. But under current ownership, the Angels simply became the west coast Yankees. Sure it was nice to see them win, but I just wasn't excited about them. When my Expos were blown into oblivion by that prick Bud Selig and his cohorts (Loria, Sampson, et.al.) I figured I'd adopt a new team. But I haven't- not with the same passion as I had for my Expos.

I didn't give up on the Bills just because they lost a Super Bowl or two, or three, or four. Anyway, I've always been a sucker for the lame bird- and maybe I'm glad that my new teams aren't the Royals and the Texans and the Grizzlies.

But for the first time in my life, I have been rooting for a favorite- Tiger Woods. Yeah I'm sure there are a billion blogs of people who might have a similar attitude as me, but Tiger Woods is just so perfect. A model citizen. Disciplined. No controversy. Oh yeah, and he's pretty good at golf. I got to see Tiger close up in Carlsbad, California about 10 years ago. My wife got free tickets to the match play tournament down the street from my office so me and my fellow dotcom sports geeks ditched work and walked around in the Tiger Woods hive. We camped out at a par 3 green and Tiger up close with his college roommate fill-in caddy. I don't know his name, but the caddy was actually best friends with one of my spectator buddies. But the tickets my wife got had some extra event on the Monday after the tourney- and it said that it was a Tiger clinic. We were a little confused, but we decided to show up to see what was up. And if you know Tiger, you know that it was an actual golf clinic hosted by Amex, Mike Turico, Tiger and about 70 fans at the driving range of the course. He was giving some basic driving tips on how to hit it low and then they opened it up to questions. A little kid asked if Tiger could hit it over the back fence of the range. Tiger said "over the back fence?... with my driver?..." The kid sheepishly answers yes and Tiger quietly says "how about with my 3?" He then proceeded to launch that badboy to Encinitas to thunderous applause. It was pretty cool.

So I've never met Tiger and I probably never will,but like so many others in the world, I'm excited to watch Tiger. And I want him to win. And I want him to dominate. Sure I was rooting for Rocco when we all knew he had no chance against Sergio earlier this year, so I think I'll always root for the underdog, but Tiger wasn't in that tournament so it's ok. The bandwagon has lots of room. And perhaps I'll buy myself a Tiger headcover so I can profess my love for the favorite.

Manifest Destiny

So when I was a kid in elementary school, we did a unit on American Indians. I think it was 4th grade because that's the class where we had an unlimited supply of clay to make an Indian village. JJ Cisneros and I worked a long time on "Boob Mountain". That was also the schoolyear that Mike Barlow got caught with a Penthouse magazine in his desk and I'd play "Mercy" with Laura Carroll every recess. But that's not the point of this memory.

As 4th graders we learned about Indians in general- what they grew, their culture, their housing and where they lived, their belief systems and oh yeah, the fact that we as a nation took their land. Great eh? Well fast forward to today and we now know that they have lots of casinos and are still treated pretty poorly in America. George Carlin had a routine where he spoke of how it all went down "Hey can you guys scoot over a little? Hey can you guys scoot over a little more? Hey can we have a little more room? Until we shoved them off to Alcatraz.


So my first grade daughter checked out a book from the library about our 50 United States- published by Time for Kids. Each page tells a brief history of each state, what they're famous for, perhaps a famous person from that state, etc. Here's the lowdown:

Delaware- First settled in 1631 by the Dutch, was inhabited by Nanticoke and Lenape Indians who burnt their settlement to the ground... Great start.

Pennsylvania- also inhabited by Nanticoke and Lenape. Swedes established a settlement, Dutch took it over, British took it over, etc.

New Jersey- Lenape. Dutch, and Swedes settled until Dutch booted them and then the British came in.

Georgia- Creek and Cherokee living happily. Forced out in 1838 to Oklahoma area

Connecticut- Algonquian, no mention of how they left

Massachusetts- Algonquian there for over 10000 years before English showed up

Maryland- Nanticoke and Piscatawy- land "granted" by King Charles I in 1632

South Carolina-Sioux and Iroquois. Land granted by Charles II

New Hampshire- Algonquian

Virginia- Powhatan & Cherokee

New York- Iroquis and Algonquian. Manhattan was purchased from the Indians- that's cool.

North Carolina- Cherokee and Tuscarora- cite of infamous "lost colony", my guess is pissed off Indians

Rhode Island- Narragansett & Wampanoag. Last of the 13 colonies and essentially the whole East Coast was now "American"

So at this point (around 1790), we've essentially booted Indians west- away from the coast, to "less desirable areas". Look at a US Map and that's not entirely terrible is it?

Now I could go state by state through all 50... and I will (except for the ones with no mention of kicking Indians out), but let me just emphasize that I've been reading this book with my daughter- one state a night all summer. So by this point, I've seen the pattern and whether she has or not is not important- this is a kids book and the first paragraph of each state basically talks about how we booted the natives.

Vermont- Iroquois and Algonquian- prior to becoming a state there were land disputes between New York and New Hampshire with fights over land- that was owned by the Indians...

Kentucky- birthplace of my father- Shawnee and Iroquois- resisted newcomers. And after all, British Law forbade settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, so at least the Brits were looking out for Indian rights... Either way, Kentucky became America in 1792. Also, please note that the Iroquois got booted. But I thought they were from places like Vermont and New York. Either there were a lot of Iroquois or these are the same ones that already got booted from VT and NY (or more likely- their children)

Tennessee- Cherokee and Chickasaw. And here's a very Cliff Notes version of the French/Indian War. War was fought between France and Brittan. Indians tried to help the French and since they lost, British got Indian territory. Also, did you know that the Indians fought alongside Revolutionaries against the British? Glad we repaid them for their help. Where was I?

Ohio- Iroquois- land lost to British as noted under Tennessee. What a surprise for the Iroquois

Louisiana- Tunica and Caddo. French claimed it, then after the French/Indian war had to give it to Spain- sure, Spain can have it, it's only Louisiana- Spain secretly gave it back to France- sort of like giving your buddy some money in Monopoly right? But then France sold it to America for $15MM- the Lousiana Purchase. So with this purchase we've essentially doubled the American "owned" land. Now we need to tell the tenants that their lease has been broken and they need to skedaddle.

Indiana- Miamia and Potawatomi. Europeans wanted beaver hats, so by golly we needed Indiana. Indians "resisted" white settlement but "American victories at Fallen Timbers and Tippecanoe pushed Indians off the land" Well at least we named the state after them. I'm sure they had adequate weapons to fight against us.

Mississippi- forget about black racism there or in Alabama. The Choctaw and Chickasaws and others had to go. Once becoming a state in 1817, the US government felt it necessary to force the rest of the Indians out to Oklahoma fully 13 years later. After all, not only is this area is ours, but you can't even be here you stupid Indians!

Illinois- Cahokia and Chippewa lived there. I'm sure the University of Illinois logo is representative of one of them

Alabama- Cherokee, Creek, Chocktaw and Chickasaw. Rosa Parks stood up for blacks, but by then the Indians were long gone. But at least they had Indian Territory.

Maine- Talk about a backfill state. Algonquins lived up there too. Sounds like a large tribe if you ask me. But oh well, we needed that land. After all, we had to pay people to live there by giving them free land.

Missouri- Osage, Missouri, Fox- another state named after the folks that got sent away. What if we named other things after those who were mistreated there. How about "Japanese-American Town" instead of San Francisco.

Arkansas- Bluff Dwellers- yes that's what they were called, although I wonder if that's what they called themselves. We forced the Indians out in 1830 so that white farmers could move in.

Halfway home and I'm only a little tired. No need to take a break, I'll see if I can power through this bad boy

Michigan- Potawatomi and Ojobwa in the Upper Peninsula- no mention of who was in the more populous southern part. "Michigan" is a from a Chippewa word so perhaps it was them.

Florida- I don't even have to look- of course the Seminoles were there- ask Bobby Bowden and Charlie something who ended up playing with the Knicks. It says that we bought their land- sounds good. But it also says that those who didn't sell were forced to move to Indian Territory- nice. "Give me your lunch money... or I'll kick your ass and take your lunch money"

Texas- Don't get me started on Texas. I actually watched a movie called Banditas and actually learned a bit about its history. Wow. What a bunch of dicks. Forget the Indian thing (Caddo). So Mexico owned Texas and gave the US permission to have a certain number of white settlers move there. But Stephen Austin let 300 American families move to live in Texas and then more and more. But Mexico was unable to really enforce this so the settlers kept coming. Now Texas (as a Mexican state) was unhappy with Mexico and claimed independence. Santa Anna went to fight the rebels and assert Mexican control over their state and killed a bunch in the famous "Alamo". Heck, we wanted independence from British rule so we fought them- and won. The confederates wanted independence from the US and they lost. The Texans wanted independence from Mexico and they lost- and we're talking Mexicans who lived in Texas- not the whites who just decided to move in. Then Sam Houston led American forces to destroy the Mexican army and Texas was now independent- until the US made it a state.

Iowa- now talk about a white state. Home of Herbert Hoover. Oh yeah, the Illinois, Miami, Sioux an Omaha lived there first (they actually took it over from the Mound People of prehistoric times). We actually were nice enough to set aside a stip of land for Sauk and Fox Indians along the Mississippi river. Now that's a very nice gesture isn't it? Now all we had to do was convince them to move there. Well that didn't go well, so a war broke out and by 1851, all of Iowa was owned by the US.

Wisconsin- Winnebago! Cool, that opens the discussion to vehicles named after Indians- Pontiac, ummmm. Indian motorcycles... that's all I feel like thinking about.

California- Cahuilla- I'm from California and have never heard of them. But regardless, this is sort like Texas. California was owned by Mexico from when they gained independence from Spain. After the Mexican American war, California became ours.

Around this time- 1851 the concept of Indian Reservations was established whereby I guess the government was actually feeling a tad guilty about the situation and figured that by giving Indians their own designated lands, all would be forgiven. I won't go into how that has gone.

Minnesota- Ojobwa and Sioux- out. 1862 Homestead Act- Free land for anyone who hasn't fought against the US. Sorry indians.

Oregon- Tillamook

Kansas- Pawnee and Kansa (now Kaw)- Kansas was part of "Indian Territory" starting in 1830. Well, by 1854, we decided that we wanted that land too. So time to move.

West Virginia- More backfilling- or actually splitting of an existing state- see Virginia

Nevada- Paiute, Shoshone, Washoe. Who cares about such a wasteland-until silver is discovered.

Nebraska- Missouri, Omaha, Pawnee, Dakota. Nebraska was the "Great American Desert", so settlers simply passed through. White settlement was in fact forbidden and it was Indian Territory. In 1854 we decided we wanted it for ourselves.

Colorado- Arapaho and Cheyenne- similar to California.

North Dakota- Mandan, Hidatsa, Lakota Sioux- Nobody wanted to live there because it was remote and Indians scared whites away. But when the railway was built, settlement picked up, their natural food (Bison) had been depleted and they eventually surrendered.

South Dakota- Cheyenne and Arikara and later the displaced Lakota Sioux. We actually had an agreement that the indians would stay west of the Missouri River and whites on the east. Sounds good enough, until the whites decided to violate the agreement and found gold. We then killed a bunch of Sioux at Wounded Knee and it was all ours.

Like I said, I'm only going to mention states where Indians lived so I should be close to being done. I've done 40 so far and I'm burning out. Sorry.

Montana- Wide variety of nations lived there since it's so big. Battle of Little Bighorn where Custer was killed by Sioux and Cheyenne. I think that pissed us off so we had to take the land.

Washington- Cayuse, Nez Perce and Yakima- sounds like a peaceful resolution for the most part.

Idaho- Nez Perce and Bannock- Gold spurred settlements which established conflict with violent rebellions with forced reservation occupation. So far, I haven't seen much good news for Indians and we're running out of space.

Wyoming- Arapaho, Cheyenne and others- passthrough state until gold discovered. No mention of conflict.

Utah- Ute, Paiute, Shoshone- again, no mention of conflict

Oklahoma- ahh the Sooners. Original home of Oklahoma Indians or Mud Builders. Since 1820, the US forced the five "civilized tribes" to move there. Wow, I seem to recall more than 5 tribes mentioned so far (east of Oklahoma), so what happened to the "uncivilized tribes"? Anyway, the Cherokee Trail of Tears refers to the thousands of miles walk that we made the civilized tribes go to get to what would become home of the Dust Bowl- sounds attractive- I wonder why they weren't enthusiastic to get there. Anyway, the ones who survived the walk ended up living there free from white settlement... until 1889. Talk about a land rush and the term "Sooner". Move! this land is ours now.

New Mexico- Anasazi- Mexican American war- see California

Arizona- Anasazi- same as California- but looking back at 4th grade, my tribe was the Hopi which along with the Navajo was based in Arizona. Wonder why there's no mention there. Sort of a peaceful resolution.

Well, that's it. all 48 contiguous states. Believe it or not, Alaska and Hawaii have their own native people, but we didn't really force them to move in order for us to settle there. I'm sick of this topic now and need a drink so I'll end it here. Hope you enjoyed your brief history of Native American Indians rant.

Sad isn't it?


Correction on Hawaii. Apparently we weren't too fond of the queen of Hawaii, so we booted her.

Dry Spell on Criminal Athletes

Wow, it looks like my blog is having a positive impact... There has been what seems to be a lull in high profile athletes in trouble with the law. I am making a difference! Well, I could of course branch off to sports related criminals- like Tim Donaghy's classmates going to jail. Or I could branch off to celebrities in general like my buddy DMX who is an easy target since he's been so busy with the law lately. Or maybe I can talk about the "good" stuff in entertainment. My buddy Paul was paired with D-Lister K-Fed this past Monday for a fundraising golf tournament. But he was a no-show since he just got custody of his kids and was actually noble enough to put them ahead of social events... good for him. So instead, my buddy got paired with E-Lister Josh Henderson of Desperate Housewives semi-fame, who apparently had to borrow some ladies clubs and kept rambling about how busy he is. Note to celebrities who brag to strangers about how busy you are- You're not that busy.

Free Advertising

Why do we as a society accept the fact that certain companies try (and succeed) to advertise for free?

Next time you're out driving, count how many cars have dealer license plate frames or better yet, the decals of the dealership right on the trunk. Do you get commission whenever someone buys a car because they saw the dealerships name on your car? "Wow, check out that hot redhead in the Denali. I'm going to Bill Jones GMC right now to buy me one of them"

And just as bad, what about the clothing manufacturers? You buy a Brooks Brothers shirt and it's got the little sheep on it. That's totally cool. But I'm talking about the shirts that says "NIKE" really big across the back

Shouldn't Nike be paying us to wear these items (maybe not this guy)? Or at least giving it to us for free?