don’t panic

I was looking out my kitchen window this morning while I did dishes, when I noticed this particular gentleman crossing the street from the Denny’s parking lot. We’re right by the trolley station, so we get some pretty interesting people around our house. From homeless guys, to high school kids taking the train to a distant district, there’s always somebody worth spying on out my little window.

The gentleman in question was dressed in the style I stereotypically call “gang banger.” Unfortunately, it’s a style that’s a bit too common around our house lately, but it consists of a bandana on the head (color varying depending on the affiliation), a baggy sports jersey, some form of large, obnoxious necklace with a massive cross or some other equally gaudy ornament, $150 brand name basketball shoes (unlaced and useless), and of course, baggy pants.

Now, this last item is where the boys are separated from the men, and I mean this semi-literally. You see, the baggy pants must be worn so that they are actually falling off, and how low you’re hangin’ determines how “bad” you are, or so it would appear. This guy had to get to the trolley, which required that he be able to walk. Even still, he was pushing it a bit as he needed one hand just to keep his jeans from slipping down around his knees. He had a belt on, but it was unbuckled and apparently only used as adornment. It was also a good thing that he had on the triple too large sports jersey or I’m sure he would have been mooning the world. It used to be that they wore boxers to hide the plumber’s crack, but the new trend is to push those down with the pants. Whatever.

The whole ensemble just seemed ridiculous on so many levels. I felt like throwing a rotten tomato at the guy, just so I could watch him try to run down the street after me. And they don’t care, they really don’t. They want to look like a child who hasn’t yet figured out how to dress themselves.

But what I don’t understand, is how a style of dress like this could have come about in the first place. I think about my youth, as bizarre as it was (snort), and I see that we had our share of fashion monstrosities. Take corduroy pants. Ick! I was lucky enough to have only one pair of bell-bottoms, and those were no choice of mine (I was six at the time), but even the wackiest of the clothes we wore were all at least functional. My mother would never have gone for something that actually made the whole point of having clothes, well… pointless.

I mean, how does it happen that somebody would choose to wear their clothing in such a way as to make them functionally useless? Don’t tell me it’s to be different, because every gang-banger I’ve ever seen looks just the same, with only minor variations on the basic theme.

I thought about shock value, but it would seem that if you’re just doing it to get a rise out of people, then why not do something that doesn’t make you look like a complete idiot? “Did you forget how to tie your shoes? No?… They’re more comfortable that way? Why not just buy a pair of $3 flip-flops instead of paying 50 times as much so you can advertise for Nike?”

Is it a status thing? Wearing your clothes like a clown is somehow a symbol of where one stands within his tribe, a bit like corsets and wigs during the 16th century? This I could possibly understand, especially if it was symbolic of the cultural elite. Okay, if that’s the case, then it’s definitely not MY culture. Still, I suppose the dress code could be an emulation of the major rap artists or something, but it still doesn’t tell me how it got started.

The corset at least, had some functionality behind it, whether it was to push up the breasts or straighten the back. And wigs were worn by the court of France as a way to show solidarity with their king Louis XIII, who was going bald. But pushing your pants halfway down to your knees in public? It’s certainly not a functionality issue… I hope… and I can’t imagine too many people who would be seen in higher regard due to the visibility of their posterior (males anyway…).

Then of course, there’s the possibility that they just don’t know how stupid they look…

Naah.

These were the local headlines at the Union Tribune website for today:

-Man shot in neck in Encanto
-One dead, two hurt in Oceanside shooting
-Witnesses restrain man trying to flee accident
-Gunman shoots into car; teen dies
-Man shot twice is expected to survive
-Woman says she may have seen wildcat
-Protest marks Chilean tall ship’s visit
-Woman, 52, killed by son showing her gun

Hmmm… Five of the eight headlines are gun related. It almost makes you think the others were thrown in there so it didn’t look like “America’s Finest City” was a war zone.

And when you read these articles, it’s so obvious that these are almost certainly all gang related, with the the possible exception of the very last. But even that one sounds a bit fishy. I mean, what is a 24 year old doing with a loaded gun sporting a laser sight? What does anyone who’s not a part of the SWAT team need a laser sight for?

And then, of course there’s the Oceanside article. The two wounded individuals appear to be simple pedestrians who just happened to be walking by at the time. This caught my attention because unless this was a semi or fully automatic weapon, the guy doing the shooting must have been pumping away like there was no tomorrow. Guns aren’t fire hoses (unless of course it was a shotgun, but I think they would have mentioned that) and bullets tend to go in a straight line. So the woman and the boy would have needed to have been standing right in line with the gunman and the victim to be hit. They were at a stoplight, so this is certainly possible.

But it makes you think. The shooter obviously either didn’t care that he might have killed innocent bystanders, or was too wrapped up in his own world to notice anyone but his victim. I hope it’s the later, because the first option is endemic of a group of individuals so cancerous to society, that we can only hope they are all killed off before they have a chance to reproduce.

I hate San Diego. It’s such a farce. We parade our beautiful weather in front of the nation to entice and mock, when the reality is that only 15% of the population here can actually afford a house, gas is nearly the most expensive anywhere in the US, and the average morning commute to work is 45 minutes each way. During the course of a year (figuring out five major holidays and two-weeks worth of vacation), that’s about 367.5 hours spent just sitting there idling. Or just over fifteen 24 hour days wasted. From a work perspective, that’s almost 46 full eight-hour work days.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Just by working from home (a la telecommuting), you buy yourself over two free months of vacation.

And then I hear about people who commute from places like Temecula and have 90 minute drive times. That’s over four and a half work months pissed away in traffic! Or looked at another way, it’s 735 hours of quality time with your family. Is your time worth anything to you? Mine is. Even if it’s only minimum wage ($6.75 around here), that’s $4,961.25 a year that you’re giving up. Salary.com reports that “the median expected salary for a typical Chief Executive Officer in the United States is $536,994.” By our number of work days, that works out to $273.97 per hour. By those numbers, a CEO in his car doing the same commute would throw away $119,179.79 per year in work time.

That’s 4.7 times the median per capita income for San Diego.

And we wonder why we have so much trouble with gangs? Joe Blow CEO is wasting away more money sitting in traffic, than the greater percentage of the population makes in four years of hard work. That kind of comparison makes you feel pretty downright small. Imagine if you came from an impoverished home in a high-crime, high-poverty area with crappy education, little or no possibility of a college education, and lethal levels of peer pressure. Add to that a lack of affordable health care, high drug use, sickening role models, and general social depression, and it’s a wonder the low-income areas don’t look more like combat zones in Iraq.

Today we took my daughter to see the Clifford movie in the theater. She loves to go to the big screen. It makes her feel all grown up. She happily consumed an entire bag of popcorn while we all enjoyed the very safe and non-violent flick.

It’s a little depressing to go to the movies anymore. Mainly because it’s hard to get over just how much the theater industry reams you compared to what I remember as a youth. Sure, the concessions were always a little pricey, but now it’s just plain scary. I got my kid a small popcorn and a small drink and it only cost me seven bucks. Of course, it was another three for the Dove bar my wife wanted, and the matinee tickets were $6.75 for us but a whole 75 cents cheaper for a child seat. All in all, I was able to take my family of three to a matinee movie for just under $30. I can still remember two dollar Tuesdays, and I’m not THAT old. Oh well. I count myself lucky. If I take my wife out for a movie date night and we splurge for the big drink and popcorn, I’m fortunate to get out of the theater for less than $50.

And the theater industry has the gall to blame internet piracy for a decrease in attendance.

Anyway, the theater we like to go to is one in a neighboring community known as Rancho San Diego. It’s one of those expensive SoCal communities that’s far enough out of the way that they can call the $800K track-homes “ranches”, and justify a bevy of amenities that that poorer regions fight for decades to get. Things like WalMarts, CostCo’s, Starbucks and Home Depots. They also get fantastic high-schools, high-tech top notch police and fire crews, a local hospital, etc. The malls are packed solid with nothing but major chain stores, and the main drag has every happening restaurant known to man. Like I said, it’s a rich place. We like the theater there for obvious reasons.

As we drive to the theater, we pass a church. To the novice eye, you might at first think you were driving past a nice school, or perhaps a golf course clubhouse. But upon closer inspection, there are the little dove symbols carefully and unobtrusively placed that give them away. You see, we know this church. My wife actually used to go to this church… Back when it was located in the barrio.

Growing up, I associated a church with an area. I was always taught that the town grew around it’s religious establishments, and not the other way around. There was good reason for this. The church was there to help the community. And this help was beyond the seasonal carnivals and religious pageants. The church was the emotional crutch for the town. It was the hope and center for those in need, even if only symbolically. And this church we passed, used to be just that. They were located in a hurtin’ part of town, with high crime, poor families, and a nearly volatile mix of ethnicity that made it downright unsafe to walk the streets after dark.

Sounds like a great place for a church.

But then somebody got it in their head that it would sure be nicer to have the church in a better part of town. Nicer for the congregation anyway. And so they saved. For years they saved… dollars. And finally the day came when they had enough to relocate their fine establishment of God into that slick new area, and sure enough, they were happier. And richer too.

You see, their hip new church attracted a whole new calling of people from that rich community, and since ten percent of a corporate exec’s wage is miles above a construction worker’s, they were “being blessed” almost faster than they could believe.

So there we were, passing this snazzy church place and I noticed that they were just ending out some function or another. It was Sunday after all, so seeing vehicles exiting the multi-tiered parking lot after noon wasn’t that odd. (They have their very own streetlight to ease traffic.) What did strike me was the percentage of SUV’s that made up the congregation. Based on what was leaving the lot while we were waiting at the red light, nearly 75 percent. And of the remaining cars, there wasn’t a one that could be purchased for less than $15k.

It kinda made me sick.

I might expect to see that kind of gratuitous hedonism coming from the mall down the street, but from a church?

What have we become? How can we sit in church and pray to God that He would “rid the community of evil,” or “help us to see His divine and righteous will,” and then drive out in our $60,000 Lexus SUV (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one), to our $900,000 “ranch” home and not feel just a little bit guilty? About two-thirds of the world’s population eats a tenth of what the average American does in any given year, and we complain that gas is too expensive?

God, we suck.

If that church is what being a “christian” is, then I don’t want any part of it. I couldn’t live with myself.

It’s red, and sleek, and sexy as hell… And it’s all mine, at last.

No, I am not speaking about a dumb car. This is something so much more practical than a mere vehicle. It’s more fun to drive. It gets better mileage. It will probably even last longer than your pithy automobile.

- It goes from zero to sixty at the flick of a switch.
- It’s 5.6 liter.
- It has a direct drive all-steel gear transmission with 67-point locked-rotor planetary action.
- It’s high-performance Soft Start motor delivers 30% more power than the previous model, and has an electronic speed sensor to maintain speed regardless of load.
- It comes standard equipped with a multipurpose attachment hub.

Yup, it’s a KitchenAid.

Some guys get excited by cars. For me, it’s appliances.

Here she is. Oh yeah…

More CNN stuff.

This article basically states that doctors are prescribing more expensive drugs than necessary, and that it is costing consumers big-time.

Part of me says, hey, be fair… New technology costs money. You are getting better, more effective treatments for things that you couldn’t even treat a decade ago. Medical and pharmaceutical research cost lots and lots of money.

But another part of me can’t remember the last time I went to the doctor’s office and didn’t see some suit with a luggage roller of drug paraphernalia they were going to push on some doctor that morning. Ever wonder why you can’t get an appointment? They’re all busy with their latest pimp.

Personally, my wife and I have on numerous occasions been prescribed medications that were not covered by our insurance, even when perfectly effective alternatives existed that were on the magic “formulary.” When we asked our doctors about it, we were usually given some line about how it was slightly more effective or specific to whatever ailment we were suffering. Hey, they’re the one’s writing the prescription that will pull you out of hell, so you don’t argue. We don’t go to the doctor unless we just can’t take it anymore, so we’re usually desperate.

But it makes me wonder when the doc hands us a slip for a med that IS on our formulary, but when we go to get it filled, we find out that our lovable insurance doesn’t cover it at the dosage the doctor prescribed. All he had to do was have us take twice as many of the old pill, and they would have been happy, but someone convinced him that it was important to have us take the expensive larger version.

And on at least two occasions I have stopped my doctor from giving me the non-generic version of a drug instead of the “brand” name. In one case, he even tried to tell me that it was more effective. I asked the pharmacist about it, and she just shook her head and told me that the doctor was full of shit.

So what’s up here?

If I follow the money, the winners are:

The drug makers – They want you to use the new expensive drugs. They sure as hell don’t want you using some generic version of a hard-earned market share.

The doctors – get kickbacks, freebee’s, and incentives when they push the drugs the makers want them to. I have about a half dozen pens, magnets and calendars for various new drugs, all given to me by my doctor. In any other industry we would call this, “conflict of interest.” Free advertising? And those freebee’s… How can you argue with that? You take them, and then don’t complain when it comes time to get a renewal on your prescription. Why? Because they worked. It doesn’t matter that there was a generic version that would have done the same thing for a quarter of the price.

But all of this is nothing new. This has been going on for generations. Wait a second? Isn’t somebody regulating the pharmaceutical industry to prevent this sort of thing? Nope. And guess what, nobody is going to. Too much money is being made, both by the drug makers, and by happy insurance companies who make a bigger profit off of customer’s laziness to fight for the cheaper meds. We’re talking big money… Billions. Many, many billions. And when you start using the B-word, that kind of cash has momentum. You don’t just throw a new bit of legislation out there to get it under control. Big money has big lawyers. Big money has big political connections.

Big money is going to rip you blind.

And when things finally come to a head, and the news media starts using phrases like “market manipulation” and “helpless consumers”, the ones at the top are going to walk away scott-free, regardless of the law, because you simply can not convict a wealthy criminal in this country.

Actually, they probably won’t physically be able to walk away since their pockets will be so full of our cash that taking a step would be impossible.

I’m not bitter… no.