Dis 'n Dat

Well, I checked the paper this morning and I wasn't in the Obits (dammit!) so I might as well empty my spleen.

Last night I saw a show about the Mongols motorcycle gang, and how they "demand respect". It made me think about all the rap songs, pro atheletes and communities in general where the term "dissin' me" has become almost a mantra. What has happened where kids and young (and not so young) adults believe that they automatically have a "right" to be respected?

Sorry, Waldo, but with me, you have to earn my respect - otherwise you're just a pathetic turd.

Now that the price of gas is hitting the $4.00 a gallon range and diesel about $5.00, whatever happened to all that "Blood For Oil"? Aren't we supposed to sucking every drop of Iraqi oil out of the ground and shipping here? And on a related subject, something that truly makes me want to go postal is the fact that, when oil on the Futures Market for July and August goes up, the price at the pump TODAY goes up to those levels. These people should know that I have She Who Must Be Obeyed, and I'm not afraid to use her!

California's penchant for goofy laws, along with the general political atmosphere, has always given me reason for not moving there. Now they're upping the ante - if you live in an apartment, you're not going to be allowed to smoke in your own home for fear of leakage of smoke into the hall and killing people. Yes, I'm a smoker, and I believe I have a legal and ethical right to smoke. Every case of lung cancer is automatically linked to tobacco smoke, yet how many of us in our 40's, 50's, 60's, etc, grew up with asbestos all over the place? Guess what asbestos causes?

California is also looking at re-working it's legal pot laws, while the Feds still claim that marihuana has no medicinal uses whatsoever. I've lived with back problems for about the last 30 years, and in the past - damn, it must be at least 15 years or so - I used pot because it was better than morphine or any other drugs I'd had for relieving back pain.

Finally, being homebound most of the time and daytime TV being so wonderful, I tend to watch VH1 Classic a lot. Occasionally I'll hear a song that I hadn't heard for at least 35 years or so. Yesterday they had a Tom Petty concert on and in the lyrics of one of the songs I picked up a gem that fits my family perfectly:

"If he gets lucky
A boy finds a girl
To help him to shoulder
The pain in this world."

I wish I would have written that - I just can't remember what song it was in (that short-term memory thing again). Oh well, an internet search should find it for me.

Addendum - I found it - the song is "Wake Up Time" from his "Wallflowers" CD. Looks like I have some shopping to do.