POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

A Torrid Love Affair

Things I'm Thankful For:

12. My Car. I love my car. Here's a couple of car stories so you will understand the depth of the love affair I have with my car. Story numero uno:

Growing up my family had the most embarrassing cars ever. We had the old school blue station wagon with the wood panel siding. We also had a bright purple minivan that we called the Barney-mobile, but when I was in high school we had a puke green station wagon (it was the pride of all my high school friends, let me tell you.) Any ways, every morning and afternoon my freshman year, I had to endure the embarrassment of getting dropped off and picked up in that puke green monstrosity. So one morning, like usual, my mother and I were arguing (probably over how much make-up I had on) and I was really mad. She dropped me off on a cold winter day, and my angry self-righteous self, huffed and slammed the door shut as hard as possible to make my point. I turned to walk off, only to realize that my coat was caught in the door of the previously slammed door. I tried to pull it out. Too late. My mom had taken off with my coat and me caught in the door of the puke-mobile. So there I was, caught in the door of the ugliest car in the world, running alongside as hard as I could to avoid being drug through the parking lot,  banging on the window and screaming for my mom to stop the car so I could....uuummm....unattach myselft.  She finally realized what was going on, and it startled her, so she slammed on the brakes, after which I slammed into the side of the car with a loud thud. After the car came to a stop, I peeled myself off the side. I stood up.  Opened the door. Extracted my coat.  Slammed the door. And turned around. Only to discover there were about 200 of my peers gathered together watching the situation, dying laughing, and all pointing....at me and my car. Needless to say, I was humiliated. Not only had everyone seen my atrocious car, but they had seen me  dragged through the parking lot in my atrocious car by my atrocious (not really Mom! I love you!) mother. It was awful. To make things worse, the basketball coach came up to me, put his arms around me and said, "It's ok, Johanna, we're not laughing at you. We're laughing with you." Riiiiight.

Story number two:

When I finally got my first car, it was a white, 1988, Mazda 323  hatchback. It had vinyl seats. I would plug my Sony walkman cd player into the radio to play my Sublime cds. But whenever I drove my car over 60 mph, the sound would start to skip pretty badly, like the car was sucking energy from everything just to do. The car was a manual transmission with no power steering. To this day, I don't know I drove that thing around. It was quite the work out.  My assigned parking space in high school was on a steep incline downward. I had to wait for the entire lot to clear before I had the nerve to even try backing that car out. I pleaded with the principal to give me a new space to no avail. Anyways, one day, I waited for everyone to leave as usual, then I tried to back out. I tried as hard as I could, but it just didn't happen. I couldn't make it up the incline. I shot down the hill, over the gigantic speed bump and almost ran over my principal. Heh served him right. He came up to my car yelling and screaming at me to learn how to drive. I just cried.

So now you understand a little bit why I love my beautiful Volvo S60 with leather and a sun roof so much. I've never had a nice car and believe me, I don't take it for granted. No more puke green or bright purple or un-driveable vehicles for me. No sir, it's nothing but smooth sailing from here.

Cross-posted at Johanna Hopes.

Johanna

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A Teachable Moment – or Why I Love Defiance

The protests? The long lines? Outstanding in my book.

This Civil Disobedience is, frankly, just what the Doctor ordered. I love it.

Nothing quite like poking a finger in the Eye of Sauron.

I'll give you an example of what I mean.

A certain 13 year old I know is quite good at math. In fact, she is spookily good at it. It's a borderline Rainman sort of aptitude.

Her teacher became furious with her for doing her homework in pen instead of pencil. She reminded the child that her work ought be done in pencil. "Why," asked the child. "Because math homework is to be done in pencil," said the teacher. "Why," asked the child. The teacher should have seen she was being set up. But did not. "Because you can't erase ink." "What would I need to erase?" asked the child. "Mistakes," said the teacher. "But I don't make mistakes in math."

The child persisted in using pen. The teacher called a conference with the parents. The parents thought it was a funny situation. Unnecessary? Maybe. Good for this particular teacher? Absolutely.

Another lesson strikes me. It is something I have imparted to my children. I think it makes sense. It is this:

If someone pushes you, hassles you, or tries to intimidate you, tell them to stop. If they do not stop and persist in their behavior, issue another warning warning and let them know the repercussions you have in mind should they fail to leave you be. If they cannot help themselves still and you feel you must, by all means slug them. And, if the situation warrants slugging them, make sure to pop them in the nose. As hard as you are able.

I think I know where We The People are in the continuum... And we are not children. Quite the opposite is true.

Spare the rod, spoil the child. And our child is very fat and sassy indeed.

Long live the Spirit of Independence and contempt for "authority."

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As for my position on Airport Security: Profile first. Lower cost, more effective. If some are inconvenienced, I am okay with that... for safety's sake of course... which seems to permit all sorts of irreverent behavior.

Enoch_Root

AKA. Bobby Donn Brubaker (the most popular man in Mesa, AZ), the Umbrella of Terror, Jack Ketch.

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My Thoughts On TSA Screenings, Part Whatever

I'm not afraid to admit it, Jazz Shaw said it far better than I've been trying to, but he makes many of the same points.

Regarding the fourth amendment:

Guess what? The moment they started putting metal detectors into airports and asking you to empty your pockets to see if that hunk of metal was a gun they were doing the exact same thing. There’s no basis to reasonably assume that a normal, law abiding citizen with a hunk of metal on them is carrying a gun, so demanding they show the screener what they have is the same violation. You’ve been having those “rights” violated for years without complaint, particularly after 9/11. You’ve just decided now that the nudie picture scanner and the groping of your “junk” is a bridge too far and are falling back on an argument you should have been making in the seventies.

Regarding how effective the procedures are:

If the security measures are that ridiculously invasive, it may turn back some would-be bombers. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that’s a desirable goal or not.

This one stings a little:

What I do know is that a lot of the rationales given for these complaints ring hollow for me, particularly the one ones listed above coming from many of my conservative friends. These are exactly the same people who will be first on line to excoriate the Obama administration the next time a plane does come down out of the sky in a flaming ball of wreckage. I assure you that many of our friends who write on this subject already have a template in place and it starts, “While there were zero successful attacks on our soil during the Bush years…”

I've enjoyed everything I've read from Jazz, and this is no different.  It doesn't hurt that he agrees with me, of course.

Adam Wells

Living life at 84 mph and 7000 feet. All I ask is that you don't block traffic, act like a professional, and don't act all surprised when your actions have consequences. Oh, and don't complain about the refs; trust me, they don't care if your team wins or not.

Gadzooks Flag, Revisited

Iowahawk had it before we did.

Naturally. *fist shake* Sorry, Serr.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Favre and the Vikings

It's funny how last year's hero becomes this year's goat. After the Vikes' 12 men in the huddle implosion in last year's NFC Championship game opened the way for New Orleans' overtime victory and eventual Super Bowl win, things have spun out of control for Favre and the Vikes.

Childress is gone now. Favre's storied career is over. The franchise has to move on. What's striking is how Favre has suddenly become a coach-killer on a par with Randy Moss, in the eyes of some Vikings fans.

It's not fair. Favre has certainly received his share of adulation, and last year's run was frankly remarkable. He posted only 7 interceptions. He lasted far longer than he should have. If you graph his effectiveness from the 2006 season onwards, nobody should have expected him to be standing upright at that point in the season. He could have increased his effectiveness by bothering with training camp, I think; but then again, he might have been worn down more quickly. A couple of weeks ago, he scored a vintage come from behind victory that bought Childress a couple of extra weeks, but the Vikes' fall from a should-have-been NFC Championship to 3-7 was just too precipitous for the fans, and finally for Zygi Wilf, the carpetbagging owner of the franchise.

Favre's played through a lot of adversity over the years, and this season's revelations about his unwanted attentions toward Jenn Sterger when he was with the Jets were certainly embarrassing. The Tiger Woods debacle gave people a little bit of insight into the kind of craziness that the life of a high profile pro athlete can entail. Favre apparently hasn't drunk alcohol in years, and that's commendable, but goodness only knows what kind of shenanigans he got up to that got swept under the rug when he was a young player in Green Bay.

To understand where Favre has been coming from, I think it's important to remember that the last time he was in the Super Bowl, he lost a close contest to the legendary John Elway, playing in his last season. Used to fairytale endings, it's not a very great psychoanalytic leap to speculate that Favre had a burning desire to leave the scene in a similar blaze of glory. Never one for regimentation, Favre's desire to play in Minnesota probably stemmed not only from wishing to visit revenge on his old team for pushing him out the door for a youngster, but also because of the Vikes' reputation for tolerating greater individualism.

Yeah, he's been selfish. Star athletes tend to be that way. On the other hand, Favre's hardly been Randy Moss. The columnists who once excoriated Michael Vick for his tax evasion and dog fighting are now writing that he's vindicated, because he's playing well and his team is winning. Sending photos of your junk to young women---photos in which you are standing in Crocs, above all---should certainly be a cause for embarrassment, and I'm sure that Favre's long-suffering wife has been deeply hurt by it all. On the other hand, compared with the vicious practice of dog fighting, or what Ben Roethlisberger's been accused of, or Tom Brady's behavior, pestering somebody with pics of your package is a rather mild offense.

It would be nice if pro athletes paid more attention to being role models, but we don't pay them to be role models. We pay them to make plays. If they do that, we forgive them.

So, what do the Vikings do from here on out? Honor Favre's contract, I guess, but start auditioning new quarterbacks. I think I recall Jim McMahon holding the clipboard for a young Favre. He could salvage a little grace by taking it well. They've got a new coach who may show enough promise to bring some continuity. If they don't think so, they ought to decide right away whom they want to bring in, get him, and start making the transition ASAP so that he has the chance to become familiar with their operation.

They need to hire a football guy. Wilf doesn't seem to know anything about football, and if he's got any brains at all, he'll recognize that and put someone in place to deal with personnel first thing. These days, it seems, empirically, that it's virtually impossible to have a guy be a successful coach and personnel guy at the same time. That's not to say that coaches shouldn't have input, but it is to say that when push comes to shove the personnel guy makes all the calls, and it's up to the coach to make the most of what he's given. The better the two can collaborate, the better for the franchise.

Get the right personnel guy, and the loss of a third rounder for the failed Moss return experiment will be forgotten quickly. Get the wrong one . . . well, it wouldn't have mattered.

I wish that I could give the Vikes fans the kind of corporate structure that the Packers have, but I can't. Having said that, everything should be on the table, even if that means dangling Adrian Peterson as trade bait. You obviously don't trade him to the Packers, but they're pretty committed to building the franchise through the draft, anyway.

I understand how Vikings fans are disenchanted, but keep in mind how long some teams go without even being in a Conference Championship game. Last year's gamble almost paid off. Lots of fans of lots of teams would give their eye teeth to get that far. Quit your bitching, especially about Favre.

UPDATE & case in point: Michael Lombardi's retrospections on Childress.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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