A Sincere Thank You to George W. Bush

The purpose of this blog entry is to sincerely thank George W. Bush for his service to and influence on this country for the last eight years. No, really. I mean that.

I believe that all of us, at one time or another, have either been involved in or observed a situation in which something had to get so bad and become so desperate that it necessitated a major shift in thinking and action. If we can do that as individuals, why can’t we do that as a voting body in society after all?

Now, it’s one thing for the President of the United States to have no grasp whatsoever of the world that exists around him (do you know the difference between Suuni and Shiite now, Mr. Bush?). It’s another thing to be stubborn and choose to surround yourself with ol’ buddies while ignoring the smartest people in the room. But to be ignorant AND obstinate is unacceptable when you're the leader of the most powerful country on earth.

In November the country finally said enough is enough with whatever the GOP platform has evolved into under his (or Dick Cheney’s or Karl Rove’s) rule. I hope it’s not too little too late, but at least we have a decent shot at getting back our credibility in the world and rebuilding our society, in both physical and psychological senses.

So, thanks George W. Bush. Thanks for convincing us that there was yellowcake uranium in Iraq so that we could mess with them while Osama bin Laden and the real 9-11 architects could hunker down in the caves of Afghanistan. Thanks for your utter disregard of the Constitution by allowing carte blanche taping and wiretapping and selling it to us as “The Patriot Act”. Thanks for allowing the incidents at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to take place on your watch.

Thanks for privatizing the war so that execs at companies like Halliburton can rake in the dough while soldiers and their families are struggling to stay above the poverty line. And speaking of our soldiers, thanks for the lack of resources to help them re-adapt to civilian life. Thanks for the apathetic response to Hurricane Katrina and the people of New Orleans, and for deflecting accountability of the response to local government.

Thanks for overseeing an enormous federal deficit and doing absolutely nothing about our financial crisis until your support base started crying “uncle”. Thanks for giving us those words of wisdom: “Wall Street got drunk”, when you were asked what your take was on the situation. I'm guessing you didn't think the cameras were rolling when you said that.

And finally, a big thanks for being the man with lowest approval ratings since they booted Nixon out of office 35 years ago. Because of you, the events of January 20, 2009 took place around fifty years before I thought it would be possible.

I can't even predict how I'm going to bowl next Thursday night so I won't attempt to take a stab at what the Dow will be at next year, what unemployment levels will be at, or to what extent this country will be looked upon as a model society again. But I like our chances. An intelligent, compassionate leader with the good sense to surround himself with other intelligent and experienced people whose views aren't necessarily commensurate with his own.

I don't hold any grudges against you, Mr. Bush, or wish you any ill will. I'm choosing to learn from the past and also know that the present and future are all we can really affect.

But if you don’t mind, please have a nice flight back to Crawford, Texas, enjoy your retirement, write books (well, maybe you ought to have someone do that for you), go quail hunting with Cheney, and so on. The rest of us have our work cut out. Oh, and don’t forget to pack that “Mission Accomplished” sign. It would really add that little something extra to your front yard.

Separated at Birth?

They say that everyone looks like someone. The now-defunct Spy Magazine (for my money, one of the most underrated publications ever) used to have a feature called Separated at Birth? There you could find a set of photo pairs of celebrities, politicians, sports heroes and even cartoon characters who looked like they could be....well....separated at birth. Some examples of Spy's work can be found by clicking here.

A few years ago, one or two of Muffinheadedboy's friends said that I looked like a popular comedian named Frank Caliendo. As a person in his forties and therefore beyond the window of opportunity for being cool in the eyes of him and his friends, I didn't recognize the name. I was familiar with his work, however, as he's the guy who does the dead on impersonations of people like coach-turned-broadcaster John Madden and George W. Bush. He got his start on the MAD TV comedy show and has done quite well following up with a show on TBS called Frank TV as well as the usual comedy club and casino touring.

Here's the evidence and I'll let you be the judges. Frank Caliendo and BowlingJoe: Separated at Birth?

Finally, if anyone reading has any good Separated at Birth candidates, send them to me at jticlark@juno.com and I'll put them in a post sometime.

Assorted Thoughts to Start 2009

> The older I get, the easier I find it to put on weight in November and December. All of that good food and drink, combined with enough snow on the ground to keep me miles away from the gym has proved to be a very bad combination. Go figure. There’s such a thing as having too many Swedish Fish candies in one sitting?

>Having a big yard filled with fir trees is really cool to look at and enjoy in the spring and summer. But it’s not so fun to look at and deal with when it becomes really windy or when it snows a lot. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that when their branches freeze and become loaded with snow, they tend to become brittle and fall like dominoes to the ground. And they don’t walk themselves to a recycle center or a landfill either. The day in which we downsize to a small place or a condo is drawing nearer.

>Mainstream society seems to all of a sudden be talking about living within our financial means these days in light of all the subprime lending, bailout talk, and utterly ridiculous credit practices that were allowed to take place over the last twenty years or so (ain’t deregulation great!). I used to hear that “financial responsibility” stuff 30-40 years ago from my grandmother, though. She wasn’t the easiest old cuss to get along with for a lot of people, but she was right about living within your means. The modified mortgage default rate in 2008 was 37%. Granted, job losses and health care costs are responsible for much of that, but it still represents a lot of people who ultimately never listened to people like my grandmother.

>The NCAA really needs to adopt a playoff system – and soon – for college football games. There are more than 30 bowl games during the holiday season, some featuring teams that have lost as many games as they’ve won. And the final game of the season (dubbed the “Championship Game”) arguably does not feature the best two teams. Yeah, I know, it’s all about the cash. But as a sports fan, it would be nice to seed the top 16 teams and let them go at it for four weeks just as they do in college basketball.

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>As we enter another new year and the War on Christmas is on hiatus until next November, my thoughts turn toward the inevitable “end of the world” predictions that show up every year. There have been hundreds upon hundreds of these doomsday predictions over time, yet we never hold the incorrect sooth sayer accountable for his or her words. Hallelujah Artists such as Hal Lindsey have even gotten rich making erroneous predictions over and over again. Here is a site that lists over 200 such prognostications: http://www.bible.ca/pre-date-setters.htm. If I’m wrong, and the world DOES happen to end this year I’ll be the first one to stand up and admit it, too.

>This just in from Muffinheadedboy in Bellingham: Western Washington University has just dropped its football program, and nobody on campus has noticed.

>Finally, I want to wish my good friend Bowlingagent all of the best as he gets ready to embark on his new adventure living in Canada. I'm glad for his opportunity but at the same time I'll sure miss our monthly (or so) lunches in which we indulge in Thai food, Pho or whatever we think is appropriate, have a lot of laughs and generally solve all of the world's problems in an hour. The silver lining to this is that BowlingWidow and I now know someone who lives in British Columbia and can just sort of drop by for around a week or so. I have absolutely no idea how receptive his soon-to-be wife will be to this but I'll cross that bridge when we get there.