Suicide makes sense now...

Where I live, we have our local daily paper - The Clarion Ledger - or the Clarion Liar, if you are having a conversation with anyone of the conservative ilk. Out in Rankin County we have the Rankin County News - a weekly subscription paper. I have actually seen a story in this paper about a man arrested for boinking his pig. So as far as I'm concerned, this paper has my respect. An offshoot of this grand herald is another weekly rag that gets tossed into your driveway on Tuesday night - you don't even subscride to it. In fact you can't stop it! It is called the Weekly Reader and while I have never seen anything about pig-fuckings in it, it does have an occasional moment of mirth.

So there is a section in this beast called "Teen Voice". This is an ongoing list of Q&A that local teens send in anonymously. Every so often I have occasion to read this crap. I do so mostly because I am always in need of an excuse to mock and patronize the local youth. Or to ridicule their parents. Or both.

I need to stop doing this, though. While I really don't think that the youth of Rankin county could ever be thought of as a microcosm of any society (unless it happened to be a society of the spoiled children of ultra-christian, super conservative, middle-class parents) it does occasionally make me weep for the future.

For instance - last week's question was "Discuss your feelings about Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath". Today, we were presented with 3 answers.

• I don't understand why the hurricane will cause bills to go up. It doesn't make any sense to me, but my parents are very worried. (from Brandon Middle School)

• It's hard to believe people are still talking about this. I mean, get over it. (from Anon. 15 yr old)

• My father's home office was in New Orleans, and he's had a lot of problems trying to get business done. He said that we're behind on bills, and this Christmas I can't get what I wanted. All because of a stupid storm. (from Pearl)

Huh? So these kids range from maybe 10 to 17. Probably 13 to 16. Anyway - when I am getting near retirement age, these kids will be running everything - or trying to, at least.

You can probably understand my concern, now.

Was I that big of an asshole at that age? It seems to me that my teenage years were one big quest for sex and good bags of dope. I certainly wasn't a civic volunteer or member of Greenpeace or any other worthwhile causes. But I also would never have been able to formulate a "lots of people killed and lives changed forever but so what get over it" statement even when I was ripped out of my mind.

Oh goddamn! The little fucker from Pearl isn't going to get what he wants for Christmas! Whatever shall we do???

Too bad the little asshole didn't ask for a hurricane to obliterate tens of thousands of homes and bring pain and suffering to hundreds of thousands of lives! Then he'd have a fantastic christmas!

Well, I'm wishing that his dad would have had a vasectomy back in the eighties! I guess my christmas will suck, too...

Homecoming (a pretty useless post)

So on Friday I went with my Japanese tutor to see one of her student's homecoming programs at a high school about an hour away from here. I don't know if all high schools do this during "5" years, but the whole homecoming tribute was to the classes of 1925, 1935, etc... all the way to 2005 (last year's graduating class). The only reason I am curious about all schools doing it was because on Saturday I went to MGCCC/Perkinston's homecoming game (yes, I was making the tour of the small schools) and they mentioned something about all those same years. But I digress...

So anyway, I'm at this high school program, and it's pretty much a cheese fest from the get-go. So they start off with 1925, read a little bit about what was happening in the world that year, what was going on at that school that year, who was who, sports, etc... Then they would do a couple of songs from that era, with the the students dancing and (some) singing. (BTW - speaking of lip-synching, how did Ashlee do on SNL? Retch!) Anyway, it was a cute idea, but there were plenty of rough spots in the production. But being ex-"in the biz", I was able to overlook most. Several of the kids did very well vocally - including my tutor's student - so it was a pleasant afternoon for skipping work indeed!

Okay - so you get the basics of how the program was laid out.

So all was going well until they got to 1945. During the little skit (I can't remember the song) the pantomime was a teacher at a blackboard in front of several students. On this blackboard was a '60s era peace symbol. Now not having been born until the early sixties, I can't swear to this, but in all of my readings and studyings of the past, I cannot recall a peace symbol prior to the sixties. In fact, I now realize I have no clue where it came from! I know where swastikas got started (and isn't that a shame that the have been so warped?). So, not being an expert on the subject, I'll let that one by with just a little mockery.

When they got to 1955, they mentioned during the opening spiel that '55 was the year the Magic Kingdom opened. Fine. But the line was ended with words to the effect of this having forever sealed Florida's fate as a tourist trap. Wha???? Okay. I wasn't born in 1955, but a childhood of watching "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" (which then became "The Wonderful World of Disney" in 1969) permanently etched Anaheim's Disneyland as "The Magical Kingdom". It wasn't until I actually visited Orlando's Disney World that I could think any differently. Okay, so the folks that wrote this are idiots.

So then we get to 1965. As part of the musical tribute, the marching bard files into the auditorium, streaming up the aisles and lining up. I was pretty excited, because there's just somethin' 'bout a huge marching band indoors that just turns my willie up! But my elation was tempered when it became apparent that the musical tribute for 1965 was Van McCoy's "Do the hustle", which any infant knows was written in the early seventies. Okay, so now the writers of this program are crack smokin' idiots?

Well, I made it through the rest of the program. Even the last segment where the class of 2005 did a quasi-ballet to Jessica Simpson's version of "Boots" from the freakin' "Dukes of Hazzard" soundtrack.

This just sealed the school's fate as the biggest cracker-heaven that ever lived.

We finally get "mention"...

So after the first week of the "aftermath of Katrina", we all know that the Mississippi Coast pretty much disappeared from national coverage. I guess we didn't have enough bastards stealing shit to make the nationals. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that we did get some mention today.

On CNN.com there was an article where they asked everyone to send in their ideas on 1) should New Orleans be rebuilt, and 2) if so - how? There were actually some pretty good ideas - although I'm not sure turning the 9th ward into a Venice-like area would really fit with the majority of the French architecture...

Anyhoo - here is where we got our mention...

As a New Orleans native, I am deeply concerned regarding the rebuilding effort. Besides honoring our architectural legacy, an effort should be made to create parks, gardens, state-of-the-art schools, libraries and community and cultural centers that focus on food, music, art and history. We have a wonderful city that has been hijacked by corrupt politicians. I don't want New Orleans to turn into Las Vegas, Biloxi, Houston, Atlanta or Disneyland.

Michael Dominici, New Orleans, Louisiana

First of all, I admire his ideas. Wouldn't it be great we just squatted down and shit money all over the place so we could fund all this stuff - and thereby give the admitted corrupt politicians an opportunity to start over and really fuck things up?

And another thing - I don't know if this bastard Mikey ever tried to walk around alone in Biloxi by himself at 3AM, but I guarantee that his heart was beating a little slower than if he attempted the same thing in New Orleans. I love New Orleans, but in the last 10 years I have found myself wandering around between 1AM and dawn less and less. Crap - I have felt safer in Vegas and Atlanta than I have on the last couple of overnights to N.O.

And the last time I looked, I seem to remember there being a little food, music, art and history in Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Gulfport etc... And even though the water is rank, we have beach! Well, had a beach... And we got (hopefully still) your god-damned Goofy Golf, too!

And there's definitely a shitload less complaining from a citizenry that actually lost something (everything) as opposed to people bitching about losing the stuff they got for nothing. Oops - I'm channeling my father now...

Anyway, it's okay to be proud of your city. Hell, I live in Brandon. It's nothing but "show-me" christians and a really fat mayor. But I'm not comparing it to Houston or Disneyland (although I prefer Disneyworld). And after everything that has been in the news from N.O. in the last 5 weeks, it appears this guy left out the paragraph where he describes how the poor and indigent of New Orleans will be systematically exterminated in order to allow his little fairyland to be built.

Fuck! Did I just say that?