She's No Bill

The latest scandal involving a Clinton (and isn't that a phrase we learned how to cut and paste) has erupted over Hillary Clinton conducting government business over a private email.

From ABC  News

She may have been fundraising for The Clinton Foundation, which supposedly is doing wonderful things around the world with the money from despicable people. Or she may have been discussing Benghazi or rather, discussing how to make Benghazi no big deal . Or, if you listen to her, she was sending 30,000 emails about her mother's funeral or Chelsea's wedding. Or sending a "personal" email to President Bill.

What would a personal email from Hillary Clinton to President Bill look like?  "Hey, stuck in Munich. Again. :(  Hope you enjoyed going to Little Rock. Love ya- H"

Or would it be:  "That little tart BETTER BE out of the house when I get home!- H"

As we all know, Hill's and Bill's marriage has been one that is either "a mystery" to quote George Stephanopoulos or one of convenience to quote everybody else on the planet. Bill needed Hillary to sweep away his Southern Horny Frat Boy reputation and Hillary needed Bill to prove to everyone that she is a heterosexual. (That's just a joke, son, just a joke.)

However, in one way, Bill has it way over Hillary and that is in lying.

A lie, in President Bill's hands, was truly a incredible work of art.  He was a master at it.

Take his famous "Ah, dad naught have sacks wid that woemun, Miz Lewinsky" (Translation for the Southern Impaired: "I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.") statement.

He looked straight at the camera. He pointed his crooked index finger at the camera as if to say, "You little idiot, HOW DARE YOU EVEN THINK OF SUCH A THING!".  He then pounded the podium to emphasize his point. Not only did he not have sex with that woman, he wouldn't even think to have sex with that or any woman besides his darling Hillary, who was stupid hot back at Yale. (That's another joke, son, just a joke.)

This is what stupid hot looked like in 1969

It made you sorry that it was brought up. Sorry, President Bill, go on with your President Bill stuff and we'll leave you alone.

Of course, as we learned later, President Bill did not have sex with that woman because he didn't think that counted as sex when even the educated fleas that do it count it as sex. So in President Bill's mind, he wasn't really lying, per se, it was just a disagreement on definitions.

Hillary's press conference last week didn't even come close to the artistry of President Bill. She looked tired. She acted like a victim, which she learned from President Bill, but she really didn't do very well.

In her book It Takes A Village, Hillary relates her first nursing experience with Chelsea. “There I was, trying to breast-feed my baby [Chelsea], and all of a sudden she starts foaming at the nose. The nurse surveyed the scene and said, ‘Mrs. Clinton, it would help if you lifted her head up.’ All those years of education, all those degrees, it was no help. For all the talk about family values in this country, we do so little to value families.”

This is an interesting passage. The education and degrees that were of little value was Hillary's. The education and the degrees of the nurse came in handy. The sentence:  For all the talk about family values in this country, we do so little to value families” is a little odd to me. Was it society's fault that the first nursing experience wasn't this grand and glorious moment?  Hillary sounds like she would have done it right if it hadn't been for these darn Republicans.

She also sounded like she didn't know what she was talking about. The whole idea that she thought she would need two "devices" (smart phones) for two separate e-mail addresses is laughable. Here's a woman that we have been told for decades is one of the best and the brightest in this country actually thought she would need two smart phones for two email accounts?

Democrats are always talking about how Republicans are not smart enough. Dan Quayle. Sarah Palin. George W. Bush.  Yet, Hillary Clinton thinks you need two smart phones to have two email accounts. To me, that's worse than misspelling potato.

Or does she know it is not true and thinks you're too dumb to care. I am betting on that.

Semi-Pro

Big news everybody! Your humble correspondent has decided to take the plunge and have some of his "work" published.

Someone I know is starting up a Kindle (ebook) Publishing arm and asked me to come along. He'll do the actual hard work of getting my "work" out there to the public while my job will be to come up with enough booger jokes to make Dave Barry jealous.

Actually, during a pitch meeting I had with him, I threw out some ideas I had for some books, which would make both of us insanely rich (or just insane).

• Teenage vampires and werewolves in a town in the Pacific Northwest.

• Teenage wizards at a wizard college in England. The protagonist has a scar on his forehead

• A man beats a beautiful young woman for sexual pleasure but it is okay because he is rich and handsome. 

• A teenage girl kills a woman for her shoes and with three friends look to kill again.

• The creation of the universe until the end of time.

Unfortunately, it seems that all of those ideas have been turned into books. However, I have some other ideas.

I will be working on a book about growing up in East Cobb County (Georgia) in the seventies called Wierd.

It was a time in which East Cobb went from being the outer hinterlands of Atlanta (Neal Boortz used to say Cobb County was the armpit of Georgia) to a fancy-smancy suburb. 

For some reason, everyone I went to school with, even the brainiacs, misspelled the word "weird". (Also, for some reason, this word appeared a lot in my yearbook as in "Alan, you ain't too wierd. Ha, Ha. Seriously, don't call.") Hence the title: Wierd.

This book will have some audience participation. If anyone has a NON-LIBELOUS story about Wheeler High School and the students in the 70's, please feel free to message me on Facebook or leave a comment at the end of this blog.

Another idea I have is called My Presidents in which I review the Presidents from Eisenhower to Obama. It is hard writing a good Eisenhower joke, by the way.

I'm also tossing around an idea called Father of The Groom. As everyone knows, my son is getting married and my idea is to give fathers of the groom some advice on that big day because all I've heard is "Show up and sit down".

However, just to get a little personal here, I really appreciate the nice comments people make about the blog and my writing.  I'm sort of like a humor writing version of "Mr. Tanner".

"Mr. Tanner" was a song by the late Harry Chapin. Young people today have never experienced a Harry Chapin song. Harry Chapin's songs were very long, depressing and made you want to step out in front of traffic. He made Leonard Cohen seem like Jerry Lewis.

In one song, he was driving a taxi and met an old lover that was really rich but she really wasn't happy. Then in the next song, he was rich but had to take a taxi to her shabby apartment.

Of course, his most famous song is about ignoring his kid and then when he gets old his kid ignores him. Or his kid drives a taxi. I don't know, they all kind of blended together.

"Mr. Tanner" is about a dry cleaner in Dayton, Ohio that was a good opera singer. Everybody told him he was great and one day he went to New York to make his debut. In any other decade but the 70's, the song would have ended Mr. Tanner becoming the greatest singer EVER in America. But since this was the 70's, Mr. Tanner's debut fell flat and he went back to Dayton to drive a taxi.

But the refrain of "Mr. Tanner" has always stuck with me.

But music was his life, it was not his livelihood,
and it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good.
And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul.
He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole.

I'm sort of like Mr. Tanner except I write jokes when discussing accounts. Humor is my life, not my livelihood. It makes me feel happy and good when I can get people to laugh. I joke from my heart and I joke from my soul.  I don't know how funny I am. It just makes me whole.

And I'm hoping this endeavor will make me a whole lot of money.

Six Degrees of Scott Walker

One thing Bill Clinton said that is absolutely the truth: "Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line". Except, of course, in 2016.

It looks like Democrats are falling in line and willing to crown Former Secretary of State Senator First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton as their party's nominee even though she has more baggage than Samsonite and she is as charismatic as concrete. 

But that doesn't matter, Clinton is a woman and would be historic and the world would fall in love with us again just like it did with President Faculty Lounge.  Oh, wait.

Over on the Republican side, just about everybody that didn't run in 2012 is running in 2016. But, so far, it is about two candidates: Former Florida Governor and Current Bush son/brother Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Currently, at this moment, right now, it looks like everybody else is way back in the pack.

The problem with Jeb Bush is his last name. Dad President Bush lost re-election to Bill Clinton, mainly because he looked at his watch during a debate. That led to eight long years of hearing about Bill Clinton's glands, which became a real drag. Brother President Bush stood tall after 9/11 but then we got into this Never-Ending War  which led to where we're at now, which is another real drag.

Jeb is kinda/sorta leading in the polls, such as they are. Polls at this time of an election cycle could best be termed as "Hey, have you heard of this guy?"  

Jeb seems smart and seems like somebody the average person could see as President. But, I don't know. I just wish he had a different last name, like Kardashian.

The only person of the rest to have made an impression is Gov. Scott Walker. He's won three elections in four years in a "blue" state and seems to be a person that could unite the factions of the Republican Party and appeal to independents.

Ahem. Not so fast.

It seems Gov Walker has stepped into one of the Democrat Party's templates about Republicans.

The templates that Democrats use on Republicans are as follows: 1) Republicans are rich and out of touch; 2) Republicans are evil; 3) Republicans are dumb.

Walker comes from a middle-class background, so you can't say he's rich. While some Democrats might say he's evil for breaking up the State Worker's Union in Wisconsin, most Americans could care less about unions or their labels.

That leaves The Dumb Template, which I wrote so brilliantly about in 2011. You can read it here: http://manisville.blogspot.com/2011/09/dumb-template.html

It seems Scott Walker does not, please hold on to your chairs because this is shocking, have a college degree. He "dropped out" of Marquette University with a year or so remaining in his degree program. To quote Jack Webb, this makes Walker: DUM de DUM DUM

This explains the fascination some have in the press with Walker's opinion on this important matter facing the country: Darwin's Theory of Evolution. The reason for this, according to Jamelle Bouie in Slate magazine, is  "evolution is a public policy issue. The foundation of modern microbiology and pathology, disbelief in evolution could lead to bad policy choices around disease control and other public health concerns. Likewise, evolution helps us understand biodiversity and helps us grasp what happens when we damage the stability of an ecosystem. Which is to say that a stance on evolution could also have consequences for environmental policy." Right.  Which means if Walker doesn't "believe" in evolution, people could die. That's not what Bouie said, but that's where it is heading.

But that was at least kind in comparison to what Bill Press said. I know what you're thinking. Nobody really cares what Bill Press says. But he does. Press says, "I’ll say it right up front: I would not vote for any candidate for president, Democrat or Republican, who did not have a college degree."

My wife will tell you that one of my pet peeves is intellectual dishonesty. First of all, Bill Press would never vote for a Republican for President.  Second, I guess that means Press would have voted for Thomas Dewey over Harry Truman. Fat chance.

Press continues, "Actually, for Walker, the issue is more than the fact that he didn’t graduate from college. It’s that he chose to drop out of college — and then chose never to go back and get his degree."  Press almost goes into vapors when he says, "All Walker will say is that he was offered a job, took it, intended to go back and finish, but just never got around to it. He’s never given any reason why he quit in the first place or why he decided completing his college education wasn’t that important."

Press seems to imply that it would have been better for Walker to get booted from college than choose to take a job and make money.  Most people go to college so they can get a job to make money. I'm not sure why this is a big deal to Press. 

Press calls Walker "a politician who belittles the value of college education and won’t even say whether or not he believes in evolution."  Heavens to Betsy. The only thing belittling the value of a college education are the college graduates themselves. Some are real smart. Some are real dopes.

Press goes in for the total burn. "Sarah Palin went to at least four different colleges over the course of six years before getting her degree from the University of Idaho in 1987. If Sarah Palin could pull it off, don’t you think Scott Walker could, too?" Nobody is saying Walker couldn't. I think just about anybody, if they have the patience (and money) can get a college degree. (Which, incidentally, is what belittles college degrees.)

I read Press's piece on an iPhone, which is a company created by a college dropout and I would venture a guess that Press wrote his column on Microsoft word, which was created by a college dropout.  Press deals with that this way: "What about Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg? True, they dropped out of college. But they both regret it, and they’ve both spent a good deal of their fortune in support of improvements in education — unlike Scott Walker, who has made war against public education the hallmark of his governorship, from his early attacks on teachers to his latest proposal to cut $300 million, or 13 percent, from next year’s University of Wisconsin budget."

I will translate it for you. I have a policy disagreement with a person so he's stupid.

The same people who will tell you Walker would be too dumb to be President because he doesn't have a college degree are the same people who said George W. Bush was too dumb and he had degrees from Yale and Harvard. The same people who said Yale Law School graduate Gerald Ford was too dumb to be President. The same people who said Dwight Eisenhower, who was the President of an Ivy League school and liberated Europe was too dumb to be President. The same people who will then turn and say we need another President like Harry Truman, who did not have a college background.

I'm not saying that Walker should be President or should even be the nominee of the Republican Party. I'm just not sure his lack of a college degree is that big of deal.

 

More Personal Health Information

I have tendonitis in my left wrist and I have one thing to say about tendonitis: it hurts like a son of a gun (to quote the late, great Joey Bishop).

While I have been dealing with this minor medical issue, it reminded me of another minor medical issue, the type of medical issue that falls into the category of really embarrassing, so I am going to use euphemisms to describe my condition.

For several years I had been dealing with the same medical condition as Hall of Famer George Brett. I had been going to the doctor for my annual check up and my doctor would say, "Your medical condition that is similar to what Hall Famer George Brett has is really getting in my way" but then he would, "but (no pun intended) it is no big deal".

George upset about his "problem"

Then one year he said, "I want it out of there". I guess it became a big deal so I went to my Colon-Rectal specialist. He's a great guy especially considering he's a butt-doctor. My only problem with the practice is that you have to park in the rear. That and sometimes his staff gets a little behind in their paper work.

But seriously, he is a great doctor. Both his Dad and brother are in this practice. I would hate to have Thanksgiving Dinner at their house.  Can't you hear the rest of the family say "No more talking shop, The Non Colon-Rectal Specialists are trying to eat".

I always wondered what magazines they read. Celebrity Heinys, American Rears, No Butts About It

When I got to the doctor's office I had to fill out some forms. A lot of the questions dealt with elimination, if you can believe it.

One question asked how many times a day. I put down how many and took the form to the counter. The front desk nurse took it and read it. She exclaimed, "Really, this many times a day?! That is awesome!". Evidently we found at what I am really good at. I told my wife that I was a Super Pooper.

I go into the examination room thinking my "problem" would be dealt with at the office. This is when I learned an important lesson.

If your doctor ever says, "Whoa" as part of your examination, you are going to have a couple of unpleasant days.

He explained that there was no way he could, er, solve my situation in the office and I would require surgery.

I had never had any surgery that required me to be in the hospital. That bothered me. Plus it bothered me that I couldn't even go to a faith healer if I wanted to-no way would a faith healer try to lay hands on that.

The big day came and I was pretty calm. Except when they began rolling me to surgery. There is a stop where they let the spouses kiss each other and I realized that this could be the last time I kissed my wife. I'm not sure why I thought this, but I started getting nervous.

I'm rolled into the surgical suite and a nurse says, "After we put you out, we're going to pick you up and put you on your stomach. This nurse must have weighed 90 pounds. There was no way, she could do that.

The next thing I knew, a nurse told me, "Mr. Manis, you're going have to wake up." I told her that they haven't started yet. She said, "We've been finished about thirty minutes".

My wife and son take me home. I'm in a fog. I lay down on the couch and my wife goes to the drug store to fill my prescription for PAIN MEDICATION.

I'm not sure what PAIN MEDICATION I was prescribed. The only thing I can say is that I felt like I was in the song "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" when I took my PAIN MEDICATION. I  pictured myself in a boat on a river. There were tangerine trees and marmalade skies and my cat had kaleidoscope eyes.

This is what my cat looked like.

I remember my friend, Tall Billy, calling to check on me. I'm pretty sure I told him I just got home from Illinois. Dinosaurs, Victrolas, Buck Owens, tambourines and elephants playing in the band were mentioned too.

After a couple of days, I snapped out of my drug haze. My, um, rear, did not hurt. However, my throat was killing me-due to the anesthesia tube that was put down my throat for the surgery.

I am happy to say that this surgery was seven years ago and I have not had a problem since. I would like to thank my doctor for doing such a great job. And George Brett.

Talkin' Trash With Kayne and Bob Blues

If you ever want to feel old, watch The Grammy Awards.

It was the usual mess of "Who is that?" and "I  never heard of them",  and "Will someone please tell Madonna nobody wants to see her 56 year old rump?".

Kayne West was at The Grammy Awards and you know what that means: soon The Grammy Awards became a part of a drama Kayne West plays out in his poor feeble brain.

After Beck won album of the year (yeah, I didn't know he had an album out either). West told the press that Beck needs to give his Grammy to Beyonce. Here are West's full comments.

"I just know that the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. We ain’t gonna play with them no more. “Flawless,” Beyoncé video. And Beck needs to respect artistry and he should have given his award to Beyoncé and at this point, we tired of it. Because what happens is when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in the face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you’re disrespectful to inspiration. And we as musicians have to inspire people who go to work every day. And they listen to that Beyoncé album and they feel like it takes them to another place. Then they do this whole promotional event, that, you know, they’ll run the music over somebody’s speech, the artist, because they want a commercial advertising. Like no, we not playing with them no more. And by the way, I got my wife, I got my daughter, and I got my clothing line so I’m not going to do nothing to put my daughter at risk — but I am here to fight for creativity. That’s the reason why I didn’t say anything tonight. But y’all know what it meant when ‘Ye walked on the stage."

I will be happy to translate this for you. "Wah! Something I like didn't win. Wah!

As you can probably guess, I consider Kayne West to be a borderline mentally ill person who, at best, is a total narcissist.  But others do not share my opinion.

Chris Richards of The Washington Post wrote an interesting if not bizarre piece about West reactions. In it he says, "And while many often hear West’s trash talk as nothing more than self-serving petulance (paging Mr. Manis), it’s always about issues greater than him."  An issue greater than him: Beyonce.

 Richards also says, "Don’t forget that West’s televised broadside against President George W. Bush’s mishandling of the fallout from Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 still stands as one of the most far-reaching gestures of social protest we’ve ever seen from a pop star."

Yes, let's not forgot when an entertainer accused the President of The United States of mishandling Hurricane Katrina not due to incompetence , but because the President hated people due to their skin color.  It was one of the most far-reaching gestures of pure asininity we've ever seen from a pop star.

Another person who had something to say was our old pal, that Bard from Hibbing, Bob Dylan.

By the way, Bob has a new Bob album out called "Shadows In The Night" in which Bob sings songs that Frank Sinatra sang. (But not necessarily Frank Sinatra songs. Got it?).

I am a huge Bob fan and I consider Bob to be the best Bob ever. However, if you are not a Bob fan, I doubt you would like this album, even though, it is not as bad as it sounds. He enunciates his words, which if you know anything at all about Bob, that is a big deal.

The Grammys gave Bob an award for being Bob and, in return, Bob gave a ramblin, talkin' thirty minute Bob speech that was pretty much the capsule of his career. It was: brilliant, weird, funny, folksy, touching, and at times, down right mean.  You can read it for yourself here: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-grammys-2015-transcript-of-bob-dylans-musicares-person-of-year-speech-20150207-story.html#page=2

He thanked Peter, Paul and Mary. He thanked Joan Baez, even though he dumped her and married a Playboy bunny. He gave some insight on how he wrote some of his greatest songs. For a moment, he seemed like our buddy Bob-that guy that couldn't sing but wrote such great songs.

Then he became Bad Bob. He criticized song writers of the past (Leiber and Stroller, who wrote "Hound Dog") and country music stars of the past (Merle Haggard). It was strange because a few years ago, Dylan toured with Haggard.

Where Bob crossed the line was his criticism of old Tom T. Hall. In his speech, Bob made it seem that Tom T. was this old fuddy-duddy country music singer. Actually, Tom T. was nothing of the sort. Hall wrote a lot of great songs like "Ballad of Forty Dollars", "The Year Clayton Delaney Died" and "Faster Horses".

His song, "I Love" drew most of Bob's ire, for some odd reason. In it, Hall says, " I love little baby ducks, old pick-up trucks, slow moving trains and rain". True, it's no "Ballad of A Thin Man", but it is a nice little song about nice little things.

If Bob doesn't like Tom T., that's really up to Bob, however Tom T.'s wife died a few weeks ago and getting such a harsh appraisal  from the iconic song and dance man was thoughtless at best and cruel at worst.

What Kayne and Bob missed was an old truism: if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.

Signs Breaks My Mind

Gather round and allow me to rant about something that has been bothering me for over 40 years.

The song "Signs" by the musical group Five Man Electrical Band.

In case you are not in your fifties, "Signs" was a huge hit. It was almost as omnipresent as "Joy To The World". You can tell the age of a person if you walk up to him and say "Jeremiah was a....." and if the person answers "bullfrog", you know they are somewhere in their fifties.

Now, this "bullfrog" was a "good friend of mine" and I never understood a single word he said.  Another word for him would be engineer.

"Joy To The World" might have been silly. "Signs" is just stupid.

First Verse

 And the sign said, "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said, "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do"
So I took off my hat, I said, "Imagine that, huh, me workin' for you"

This song came out when young men were growing their hair out like Bruce Jenner. You would not believe how controversial this was.  You had all of these long haired freaky people walking around telling you not to judge long haired freaky people.

Here was a small businessman who wanted to make a good impression on his customers and not offend anyone.  But, the narrator of this song is a preachy long-haired freaky person and instead of finding another job where they like long-haired freaky people he decides to commit fraud so he can make his point that this guy is a hair bigot. Or a hairaphobe. Or hair hater.

In 2015, this guy would have been the recipient of a lot of mean tweets, #hairhater, #hairaphobe.
 

The chorus

 Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

Wikipedia says the lyrics "seem to show an extreme level of frustration with the omnipresent, authoritative symbols employed by governments, institutions, and religion to commit society to a "conform or pay the price" system of control".  I would add the lyrics shows a lack of perspective.

Of all the bad things in the world today like childhood cancer, poverty, war, famine, etc., what breaks the singer's mind are signs?  This doesn't make any sense.

There is a certain Libertarian element to the chorus. Libertarians are always using the argument, which is good sometimes about the intrusiveness of government. "If I want to drive my car at 100mph, drinking a martini with a heroin needle in my arm that's my business--not the government's".  But you have to have signs, or people would spend hours trying to push the door open when you have to pull it.

The second verse

And the sign said, Anybody caught trespassin' would be shot on sight
So, I jumped on the fence and yelled at the house
"Hey, what gives you the right?
To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in
If God was here, He'd tell you to your face, man, you're some kinda sinner"

Granted, shooting a trespasser on sight is kind of harsh, but again, the singer cannot resist a sermon.

"Hey, what gives you the right?"  Oh, I don't know, the DEED of the property, maybe. Several hundred years of common law.

My question back to the singer: since you brought up God, where does he say  that I can't put up a fence? As we Baptists say, what Bible is that in? Nowhere did Jesus ever say, " Blessed are the trespassers, because it is cool".

The break

Now, hey you, Mister, can't you read?
You've got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat
You can't even watch, no you can't eat
You ain't supposed to be here
The sign said, You got to have a membership card to get inside, ugh

Here the singer again gets mad because somebody has something that he doesn't: a shirt, a tie, and a membership card. Maybe if he got a haircut, he could get a good job and be able to afford that restaurant. No, he'd rather complain "You got to have a membership card to get inside" and then emit a noise which sounds like he is passing a pineapple.

The last stupid verse

And the sign said, "Everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray"
But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all
I didn't have a penny to pay
So, I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign
I said, "Thank you, Lord, for thinkin' 'bout me, I'm alive and doin' fine.

Was anybody surprised that this guy didn't have any money for the offering?  No, he spends his time giving sermons about hair to people that might give him a job. His own little sign probably wouldn't feed a lot of widows and orphans.

However, the good news is, according to The Ottawa Sun, Les Emmerson (who wrote "Signs") earns enough money from royalties of "Signs" that he has an average lifestyle without working. Which means he's alive and doin' fine.

What College Is About

As a high profile alumnus of Kennesaw State University (Motto: It's Great At Kennesaw State) I feel compelled to comment on the recent kerfuffle with 70's radical Angela Davis.

Okay, maybe I'm not the most high profile graduate of Kennesaw State. According to Wikipedia, that title would probably go to Ty Pennington (of ABC's Home Makeover) or Mac Powell the lead singer for the Christian Rock band Third Day who used to watch my son at daycare. Really. I'm one of the few people in America who can say somebody that watch their kid at daycare has won a Grammy. That is so cool.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I may not be the most high profile KSU Owl, but I'm the only one with an award winning humor blog.

A couple of weeks ago, Angela Davis, a self proclaimed communist radical from the early 70's when being a self proclaimed communist radical meant you had a killer Afro, gave a speech at Kennesaw State in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday.  The Communist made $20K for giving an "admiring audience of  more than 700" a speech full of such wisdom like:  "We think of gender as being male and female, and so precisely, trans prisoners and trans activists have opened our eyes, not only to the importance of addressing trans issues in the context of that work, but also the fact that there’s a way in which an understanding of the gender binary in relation to prisons, it affects all of us." [Note: this is a direct quote from the speech]

Silly me, here I was thinking "gender" meant male and female, but that's what college is for-to hire has been speakers at 20K a pop to "open our eyes".

There was a lot of controversy about Davis coming to campus. It fell along predictable lines.There were the conservative fuddy-duddies who don't understand anything except what our leaders (Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly) tell us we understand. I can assure you none of it has to do with gender binary in relation to prisons.

Then there were those like a local banker who said "You can’t be ignorant to things going on because our points of view won’t matter if we’re not enlightened or if we didn’t have knowledge of what’s going on.”  I have no idea what this means except I won't be putting any money in his bank.

And what college controversy would be complete without the lecture of what college is all about? My first inclination was to say college is about $25, 773.00 a year, give or take $10,000, at least according to the Kennesaw State website. This also includes $1834.00 in fees, which means every student helped pay for Angela Davis. However, a student explains what college is all about. 

"The purpose of attending any University is not just to study toward the goal of attaining a job after graduation. A student's time at university should be used to explore themselves as individuals as well as the fast paced world they live in. The faculty and staff at Kennesaw State University strive each day to open the eyes of their students to not just one opinion, but to all. They encourage each student to not just think for themselves but to practice seeing the world through the eyes of the student sitting next to them. In some cases, this means eating sushi at the commons or wearing a hijab for a day and in other cases hearing from a speaker with unique life experience. None of these opportunities are mandatory, but each one offers those that take part the chance to make an informed decision about why they, as a person, should choose to hate or love an item, topic, or religion."

Wow, college is a time to "explore". At $25K a year, that's some pretty expensive exploration. Boy, when I read things like this it makes me want to sell my bonds.

Anyway, here's a little more broader perspective. Davis was a kook and nut in the 70's and she is a kook and nut now.  For some reason, kooks and nuts are popular at colleges. However, I can guarantee you that for every student that was there, there were thousands who were not there and could care less.

Do you know what?  Their lives will be just as happy as those that listened to Davis' enlightenment, maybe more so because they are not reflecting on the gender binary in relation to prisons.

I don't blame Davis for taking $20K and giving a speech. That's a pretty good gig. I hope Kennesaw State has some money set aside for Ann Coulter. Just in case if the university is really striving to open the eyes of their students to all opinions.